


Now, As Before

by etherati



Series: Watchmen Zombie!AU [1]
Category: Watchmen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Drama, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, If you only read one work by me, M/M, Pre-Roche, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Weird Shit, long chaptered, look I quoted eliot AGAIN, the usual canon ouchies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherati/pseuds/etherati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"After changes upon changes we are more or less the same." A city as big as New York has a lot of secrets. When the infection hits the streets, there are changes that cannot be undone, lives that will never be the same - and maybe that's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a zombiefic challenge from the kinkmeme. AU. Pre-Roche, so expect reasonably complete sentences from our favorite psychotic redhead. Warnings include: 'zombies created by SCIENCE' cliché, bad science on top of it, mild gore, MotherHen!Dan, non-explicit slashiness(Dan/Ror). Also: OMGWTF*LONG*.This sucker is sitting at about 50 pages in Word right now.
> 
> ALL ART IS BY [LIODAIN](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain), not me. &lt;3
> 
> End notes are at the end.

*

_(What the hell __**now**__…)_

It's a scratching, clicking noise, coming from his front door – the scrape and tug of a rake over tumblers, and Dan can't be certain, but he doesn't think _they_ can pick locks. Burglars or looters though, maybe. All fight and nerves, he snatches up the nearest heavy object and heads straight for the front door, puts his hand on the knob. Flicks the lock with his thumb and yanks, hard.

It's been a very long day. Not a great one either, as quality goes. _(Wrong day to mess with-)_

There's a stretch of several seconds in which Rorschach tries to take in the fact that his tools are no longer in his hands along with the fact that Daniel is standing over him with a table lamp poised to strike, head twitching to the side with the sort of confusion that comes from being so focused on one task that anything outside of that is completely beyond processing. It only takes a second more for Dan to see that disorientation, recognize the strange way Rorschach is holding himself against the doorframe, catch the overpowering stench of blood and adrenaline – add them all up to 'very wrong', and bundle the smaller man into the entryway without a word.

*

"I thought you were a goddamned burglar, you know. You usually just kick the lock in."

Rorschach sways almost imperceptibly on his feet, trying to tuck the pick and tension wrench back into their case with badly shaking hands. Reaches up to lift the mask up over the bridge of his nose, and his breathing doesn't sound right. "The door wouldn’t have been very useful without a working lock. They can use doorkn-"

"Right. I know. I don't actually care." Dan interrupts in a rush of words, wired and aggressive from his own frenzied flight from the streets not an hour ago. He slams the deadbolt home before rounding on his partner, hands clamped firmly on either shoulder. Not in any mood to screw around. "Before you start, don't say you're fine; I can see the damn blood. What happened?"

"Nrrk. Was across the street from the… 'research' building when it…" he trails off, seemingly at a loss. That's remarkable in and of itself; Rorschach is never without a turn of phrase. He sways again, slightly more noticeable. Shifts his weight off of one leg.

"'Breached'?" The quotation marks are audible in Dan's tone. 'Breach' is what they’ve been calling it on the radio news for the last two hours, and it's a ridiculous euphemism when you consider the fact that what they've _actually_ done is accidentally let loose thousands of top secret test subjects infected with only god knows what, 'people' only a touch shy of the living goddamned dead, and maybe they _are _people but they're still trying to _eat you._

He refuses to say the word that is on the tip of everyone's tongues. Refuses to think it.

"Yes. Coincidence, was just passing by. I-" A beat of sudden, confused silence before Rorschach's legs finally buckle under him, threatening to send him to the tiled floor where blood is already starting to pool in dark, ominous splatters. The rate he's losing it at, it's amazing he's standing at all…  


  
art by [Liodain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain)

  
…and Dan moves quickly, catching him under the arms and guiding him into the kitchen, straight into a chair. Under the better light he can see the dark stains against the pinstriped fabric, soaking one pant leg clean through, coming from somewhere higher. Can see how much there is. Can see that there's far _too_ much. The coat's covered in muck and grime, telling the story of a roundabout and unpleasant trip to the brownstone's door, and if he was dropping blood this fast the whole time... mf. Dan reaches for the knot in the coat's belt; pauses, looks up. "Here, let me just…"

No response. Almost worse than being rebuffed or, on a bad day, hit in the face. Something cold twists in Dan's stomach.

He works the coat open, one eye on Rorschach for any sort of reaction, then sucks in a breath, harsh and fast. It's a complete mess, worse than he expected – a jagged tear in the fabric, high on the outside of the leg, and a more jagged tear in the skin underneath and – god, is there a chunk missing? There is. He sees something that looks like bone and almost loses it, almost throws up right then and there all over the kitchen tile; swallows down hard on the rising bile because damn it, there are more important things to do right now, and of all the times to come stumbling in with a hospitalization-worthy injury, the streets overrun and medical care inaccessible…

Fuck.

_(Slow down. Take a breath.)_

"All right, I… I'm not sure if stitches are really going to cover this, but let me get the kit down and I'll do what I can, okay? You're probably stuck here for a while anyway…"

Again, no response. Again, something twists. Again Dan ignores it, crossing to the shelves to pull down the kit, hoping like hell he remembered to restock it after the last time it was used. He's popped it open and is eying the contents speculatively when Rorschach finally finds his voice, strained and rougher than usual: "Daniel. Do you have a firearm in the house?"

Dan freezes, hand in the kit, then resumes again, picking through the suture weights. "Somewhere. Closet, I think. Don't ever use it."

"Loaded?"

"No, Rorschach, I don't tend to keep loaded guns lying around." And it's almost lighthearted, almost a joke. He settles on the heaviest weight he can find, pulling the package and a fresh needle from the box.

"Load it. Keep it on you. As long as I'm 'stuck here'."

Dan's coming back over now, sutures and needle in one hand, a pair of bandage shears in the other. He makes a noise that is part laugh, part sigh, part nervous breakdown waiting in the wings. "Come on," he says, and he's trying to be persuasive, but who is he trying to persuade? "This isn't some stupid horror movie. We have no idea if… look, the pants are a loss, I'm gonna have to cut this away, all right?" A vague nod. Daniel sets to work stripping the fabric away, peeling it back as carefully as he can, and it really says something about how far out of things Rorschach is that he's not insisting on doing all of this himself, physically able or not. "…if it's even communicable, or how it's passed… we don't even know what the hell we're dealing with, all we know is what they look like. And they're _not_ what they look like, I'll say that now."

A noncommittal noise, and as Dan starts to clean the blood away as best he can, Rorschach shifts slightly in the chair, his only concession to discomfort. "I'm not taking any chances." A pause, slightly longer than it needs to be, then: "Not with you."

Dan pauses, glances up at his friend, at what he can see of the face below the mask. Shakes his head slightly. (_Blood loss, that's blood loss talking…)_

Still…

"All right, well, if it makes you feel better, I'll get it down. After I stitch this up."

Another unintelligible noise, sounding like vague approval. Silence for a few moments, as Dan starts stitching, pulling the wound closed as well as he can without clean edges. Rorschach just sets his mouth in a tight line, getting tighter with every pass.

Sensing the need for a distraction, Daniel ties off a stitch and hesitates before beginning the next. "So, how exactly did he manage to _do_ this much damage, anyway?"

"They," and it's halfway a word and halfway a grunt but it gets the idea across.

"They?"

"Daniel. You think I would have let this happen if there was only one of them?" And it's another almost-joke, one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly, and wearily.

Daniel huffs a nervous laugh, starting the next stitch. "No, sorry. What was I thinking?" A matching smile-that-isn't-quite-a-smile. "Let's see, now. Ten?"

"Hrm. Getting warmer."

*


	2. Day 3

_*  
_

Rorschach's been drifting in and out of sleep all day in the guest room, and Dan stands in the doorway for a minute, just looking in. His partner is hopelessly tangled in sheets that will likely need changing again in the morning - he's been sweating buckets - and restless. The mask is laying folded neatly in half on a nearby table, spoils of the battle Dan finally won early this morning when the fever spiked dangerously high and he'd been forced to put hands to either side of Rorschach's head and _hold_ it there against the pillow and explain in explicit detail exactly what he would do to the stupid bastard if he went and boiled his brain.

"Infected," comes an indistinct mutter from the room.

"I'd imagine so, yeah," Dan replies, walking in, fresh bandages rolled in one hand. "It's deep. No way we could've cleaned it completely." He sits down on the edge of the bed, reaching to peel back this morning's dressings and determine if they need changing - a bizarre bravery backing his actions that has come on in the last few days. He'll have to retrain himself once Rorschach is coherent and present and personal-space-obsessive as usual again

_(if he makes it)  
_  
but for now, he’s going to take what breaks he can get.

Rorschach grunts in frustration, rolling his head loosely to one side, eyes fever-bright and focused somewhere in Dan's vicinity but not quite on target. Speaking is an effort. "No, Daniel. _Infected._"

Dan sighs, both at the delirious assertion Rorschach's been making for most of the last 24 hours and at the red, swollen mess under the bandage. He reaches for the bottle of Isopropyl by the bedside. "You've had a high-grade fever most of the day. You'll forgive me if I don't trust your judgment."

"Hope you have that pistol on you," Rorschach mutters, glazed eyes shuttering closed.

There's a moment of silence and inaction, then Dan sets the bottle back down, too hard. Irritated. "Oh, for the love of- okay. Let me see." And he reaches both hands down to the smaller man's unresponsive face, none-too-gently prying eyelids open. Watches the pupils dilate appropriately. Slides both hands down to his throat, pressing in at the pulse point. "Eyes look fine, pulse is strong. And you're heating up, not chilling down, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Noticed."

The alcohol probably stings, but Dan's annoyed beyond caring at the moment. Annoyed and, in the back of his head somewhere, just a little bit honestly terrified despite what logic and reason tells him. The things he's been hearing on the news, and that call on Archie's radio from Ozymandias, all disjointed and broken and _screaming_ in the background... "No more... 'infection' bullshit, then." Yeah, he's definitely going to have to retrain himself later. And he's still refusing to say the word. "It's infected all right- with bacteria. The normal kind you pick up dragging a gaping wound all over the city, wrapped in a filthy trench coat. We break this fever and from there on it'll be fine."

There's a noise in response but it doesn't say much, and Dan doesn't say anything either, just quietly cleans the injury and rebandages it. No words out loud, but before he leaves - Rorschach's drifted off again - he reaches down and runs a hand lightly over the bristle of his friend's impossible hair, the only thing that'd surprised him when the mask came off, and catches himself thinking, irrational and panicky:

(_Please, just... please. Don't do this to me.)_

_

  
art by [Liodain](../../../users/Liodain)

_

  
*


	3. Day 6

*

_"Here to provide information to our loyal and understandably terrified listeners is the lead scientist behind the experiment that - quite accidentally - created the veritable plague currently sweeping our streets. He has agreed to speak to practical concerns provided we preserve his anonymity - so before the switchboard lights up, no, we won't be giving out his name or home address or his dog's telephone number, no matter how nicely you ask. Doctor Smith? Oh, that's a pseudonym by the way. Please don't go digging through your white pages under 'Smith'. Doctor?"_

In the other room, Rorschach tosses restlessly. The fever broke two days ago, and Dan had been ecstatic at first - until the thermometer dropped past normal body temperature and kept right on going down. He leans across the kitchen table and turns up the dial on the radio. It's late - past midnight - and the pistol in the waistband of his slacks is uncomfortable but he's kept it on hand, as promised, since the first night. Its necessity is starting to look plausible, and he's trying not to think about that too much.

_"Thank you, I just want to say, thank you for this venue, I want to get as much information out to the people as I can..."_

Dan frowns. Voice-changer of some kind.

_"... the most important thing that we've determined, that people need to know, concerns the virus's communicability..."_

*

It's dark when Rorschach comes around again. Not completely black - streetlights glow in through the half-shaded window - but clearly night, clearly late.

It's the first time in six days anything has been clear at all.

He runs his hands up over his face, and freezes.

_(Mask...)_

"Here," comes a quiet, strangely blank voice from somewhere above and to the side; Rorschach focuses in on it and if there's anything unusual about the slump in Daniel's silhouette against the window, sitting still on the edge of the bed, he doesn't have nearly enough context to figure out the cause. He props himself up on one elbow, reaches for the offered mask. Pulls it down to the bridge of his nose, but there's no urgency in the motion – the damage is already done.

Damage, damage – his leg is sore, but not as sore as it should be, really, when he tenses up in preparation to launch into why he has to leave, why he shouldn't be here, why he doesn't need taking care of. Kneejerk. But he's cold.

Very, very cold.

The diatribe never materializes. He just stays where he is, propped up on his elbows, watching Daniel stare at nothing. Eyes narrow and refocus lower, somewhere around the other man's waistband. "Daniel," he starts, and his voice is rough over whatever cotton-based life form has crawled down his throat and died, but there's a glint of steel in it. "Where's the gun?"

"You know, it's amazing." And it's not really a reply, exploding from the shadow-Daniel as if it'd been battering against closed lips for hours, waiting for an opportunity to get out. "We've worked together for ten years and it takes you getting bitten by a goddamned _zombie_ before I get to see your face."

There: he's done it. He's said the word.

"Daniel-"

The taller man looks away from the fascinating nothingness finally, eying Rorschach sideways, cutting him off. "I put it away. Not gonna need it after all." He shifts, letting his arms fall heavily across his knees. "Found out how this thing works."

_(No, no no no...)_

Outwardly, Rorschach displays nothing, getting his hands under himself and hitching up into a more upright seated position against the headboard. Regards Daniel steadily for a moment through the sluggishly shifting inkblots, the bottom half of his face luminously pale in the half light coming in the window. And it isn't a question, not really: "I have it."

A nod, all that’s needed.

"_Should_ have the pistol, then." A beat of silence, then he fists his hands in the blanket, growling out through his teeth, "Should be _using_ it."

"Has it occurred to you," and Daniel's tone is infuriating, slow and metered out as if he were speaking to a dense child, "that if you're capable of sitting there telling me you need to be shot in the head, that you might not need to be shot in the head?"

Nothing at first, then an uninterpretable noise. Daniel turns his head to look him square in the face, now. "The test subjects that escaped had been altered, Rorschach. On a genetic level. To produce some sort of ... transport... _something_, that would let the virus cross the blood-brain barrier. Something like that. I'm getting the terminology wrong." He fiddles with the seam on his pants leg, glances down at the floor. He's being clinical. Distant. The other shoe is waiting to drop.

Rorschach waits, quiet and still. He's never felt so capable of stillness.

"If you don't have the alteration, it... can't get into your brain. Apparently there's been..." A sharp huff of breath, "...a _lot_ of people infected. The stuff we were checking for... temperature, heart rate, everything slows down but... none of them have gone crazy or tried to eat anyone."

"Hrn." Flat tone. "Good to know." Except it isn't good, not really. Yes, it's good that his mind is still his own, that he isn't going to turn into an _it_ or try to murder his only friend or be unable to continue bringing justice to the evil swarming the streets outside the window for want of being any different from it. But the overall situation is anything but _good_.

If Daniel catches on to any of this, he doesn't let on. "Yeah. They're calling it a 'metabolic disorder' at this point. You don't wanna know what people were calling it a few days ago."

An uncomfortable silence, a second or two too long. "Permanent?"

The answer comes too fast, too rehearsed. "No one knows. Too early."

An even longer silence. Rorschach reaches up to tug his mask the rest of the way down over his face, then pushes the blankets aside. When he speaks again, the effects of six days spent in a fever-haze are all but banished. The question would be almost-funny but for the dead seriousness of his tone: "Where are my pants?"

Daniel blinks, then pushes to his feet, heads for a chair across the room where some folded clothing is stacked. "I had to cut them off the night you showed up. Found a few things that'll probably fit you. Might need to roll them u-" An awkward pause, Daniel squirming slightly under the masked glare. "-er, I mean, they should work for now."

The stack is dropped lightly onto the foot of the bed, and Rorschach grabs a pair indiscriminately, slides to the edge of the mattress, starts pulling them on over dressings that had stopped going bloody two days ago. It isn't healing properly, he can feel the edges pull and shift, but it's by and large numb at this point. Reaches for the shirt and suitcoat that are both hanging near the bed. "Should start patrolling again. Must be a lot of people who need help right now."

...and there are layers, there...

"Sure," Daniel replies, one hand on the doorknob, glancing back as Rorschach shrugs on the jacket. He's quiet, and so careful. "As soon as you're solid enough on that leg to not get us both killed."

...and layers over the layers. Something runs in the space between the words, a sickening mixture of hope and futility and normalcy and the sense that nothing will ever be normal again; Rorschach almost says what he's thinking, that he can't really get himself killed when it's already happened, but then he feels a sluggish beat tug through his chest and concedes the point in silence.

Daniel shuts the door quietly behind himself, giving his friend privacy to dress and gather up what's left of himself.

*


	4. Day 7

*

Dan comes up from the basement with plodding, tired steps, echoing on the narrow stairway like something much larger and more dangerous. He's been retooling Archie all day, working on the armor, working on new weapons. Making it a safe form of transport in a city still swarming with the bastard children of mankind's shortsightedness-

_(You're starting to think like him)_

-and swarming just as profusely with people in danger, people who are no longer able to heed the advice of 'stay indoors' for one reason or another. Maybe they're out of food. Maybe they're ailing and need doctors or medicine. Maybe they've gone mad with the isolation of a week's captivity, shadows shifting across windows and faces, screams echoing dully through the walls.

Dan's getting pretty close to that last one himself.

The radio news hasn't been helping much, either: Local hospitals reporting high rates of unexplained fatalities among admissions infected with VT-10 – that's what they're calling it now, the designation declassified by necessity – people simply fading, failing, dying in the night...

...and the original test subjects beginning to drop dead where they stand, like a switch had been flipped – or a timer. Ticking.

_(What would you do if you woke up one morning and found him-)_

_(Stop it.)_

_(And what would it do to him, to die as alone as he's lived?)_

Then there were the unsubstantiated claims that people were starting to be attacked by the carriers as well as the test subjects, that formerly released patients were being dragged off in restraints, frothing and biting and mad as adders.

_(**Stop** it.)_

He steps into the kitchen distracted, miserable thoughts like black water spinning to the surface, refusing to stay down. Just a week ago he'd said this wasn't a horror movie, but...

He pauses in his tracks, then smiles slightly, the first glimmer of genuine relief he's felt since this began. Rorschach has pulled himself out of the guest room and into the kitchen – stubborn goddamned bastard – and is scraping a fork around the edges of a can of something or other, mask pushed up as he eats. The exposed skin is still startling, all ivory and blue and bruised, but he's _eating_. There are other cans and boxes and packets, all half-eaten, spread around haphazardly. A bowl a third-filled with cornflakes sits abandoned near the center of the table. It could almost be normal, almost be _before_, if it weren't for the constant noise from outside. The smile comes through in his voice. "Hungry?"

  
art by [Liodain](../../../users/Liodain)

  
"Mm." The fork scrapes a few more times, and the can goes down, still partially filled. Another is picked up, prodded at experimentally.

"I could heat something up for you, you know. Without being too domestic about it, I promise."

The fork stills for a moment, the thought turning itself over, and Dan gets the impression that it isn't the offer of warm food he's thinking about.

_("Not taking any chances. Not with you.")_

("Don’t you dare, you bastard, your brain is gonna cook in there...")

("...to not get us both killed.")

(...)

(...because you still see him as alive, don't you? Despite all evidence to the contrary...)

The can also joins the others. A quick motion and the mask is back down. "Doesn't matter. It all just tastes like metal anyway."

Dan frowns, picking up the cereal bowl. "Metal?"

"Adrenaline. Fear. Metal."

A slow nod, then Dan turns to the sink, dumping the sodden remains of the cereal down the drain, turning on the water. He knows the taste his partner's referring to; the blood-in-your-throat feeling when adrenaline spikes too high and for too long, enough to have convinced him he must have torn something inside the first time it'd happened except that it isn't quite copper, isn't quite iron. Tin, maybe. Aluminum. Fear...

Dan cleans quietly until he hears a rustling at his elbow, glances over in time to see the catering sack disappear from the counter. He listens to the rough crunching of sugar cubes behind him, comforted in some small way that some things, at least, are immune to change.

*

 


	5. Day 9

*

Daniel is hunched over the controls, navigating them low and tight through the city, spotlights peering down empty alleys and into all the pockets of shadow and filth, emptying them of their secrets. They can't rely on such clear and visible signs of trouble anymore.

Wait.

By the wall...

A deep sound settles in the back of Rorschach's throat, and he's got one hand on the back of Daniel's chair, leaning low over him to get a better view out the window. And Daniel probably thinks that he does a good job hiding his momentary flinch, reaching forward to tweak a knob uselessly. Pressure stabilizer. Disconnected for years. Distraction tactic.

"What is it?" he asks, and it's deliberately light and even-keel, artificially so, and he hasn't turned his head. Waiting for a response, hoping for one, letting the seconds drag, but he still won't just turn his head and_ look._ Unwilling to give in to the momentary lapse of trust, the kneejerk reaction of a brain and body wired together to be ready for a fight.

If it occurred to Rorschach, he wouldn't blame him; he practically growled in Daniel's ear, and the night has been rough so far, more full of nightmare fuel than most people encountered in their lives. It doesn't occur to him, though. He's too focused on what he's seen in the street. He points with one gloved hand, directly across Daniel's field of vision. "There. By the mouth of that alley."

A sigh – relief or disbelief or something else entirely – and Daniel angles the ship's spotlights to the indicated spot. Nothing. Just rotten brickwork and greasy garbage and unidentifiable puddle of muck, brown and black and red in the li-

Red.

Daniel narrows his eyes, focusing in the spot beams for more accuracy. "You sure? I'm not seeing any movement down there."

A frustrated breath, sharp through the mask; force of habit if not necessity. No time for this. Rorschach crosses to the hatch door. "We can argue later if you want. Get us down there. Now."

Daniel doesn't argue now and probably won't later; just drops Archie into a tight descent, as close to the alleyway as he dares. Rorschach's out the hatch before he's even killed the engines.

*

When Dan finally drops from the ship, he finds himself in the same eerie, swirling sort of silence that's been dogging their steps all night. The city has never been this dead, _shouldn't_ be this dead. Still. Quiet...

Quiet except for a deep and violent sound that echoes back and forth against the brickwork funnel of the alley, and the immediate staccato of boots against the pavement as his partner hares off into the darkness without a moment's hesitation. He starts to swear, starts to think_ (he's going to get himself killed)_, thinks better of it and just follows as quickly as he can-

-and god, it's so dark, just black within black and why aren’t his goggles responding –

-and there's a scream, hoarse, like it'd only just managed to tear itself free after trying and trying and trying –

-and there's the heavy thud and crunch of something made of bone and muscle hitting a brick wall, once, twice-

-and that's a lot of restraint really, only twice, and…

_(it's too dark, what the hell is going on, can't see, the sound is all wrong, echoing far and close and strange...)_

...a boneless slumping noise, something hitting the ground that isn't going to get up again. Daniel counts out three seconds, hears nothing further, then fumbles in his pouches for a flashlight. The beam falls first on the corpse against the wall – already white, too white, dead before it died – then on Rorschach, crouching down over a middle-aged man lying prone amongst the garbage, clutching at a bloodied shoulder. They're closer than Dan had expected, only a few feet away, and the thought of what he'd almost stumbled blindly into the crossfire of is enough to send a shake through him.

The flashlight falls over Rorschach's mask from the side, all white and hollow black shadows. It looks a lot like the thing lying beaten but not bloody against the nearby wall, twisted and strange.

There's a shotgun next to the injured man, obviously dropped during the attack.

Dan suddenly wishes he was better at putting two and two together.

"Holy _fuck,_" the man shouts, guttural and violent, scrabbling for the gun. Rorschach had been reaching for the injured shoulder, most likely to ascertain the damage, and normally he’d just disarm the man but his angle and position are all wrong and he knows that without having to think about it, rolling back onto his feet in an instant, a quick step backwards...

...the shotgun starts coming up, the man's unsteady hands shaking around the barrel, clawing for the trigger...

...another step backwards but it isn't going to be enough, quarters are too close, and Dan's got the right angle and is doing just the opposite of what he wants to be doing over the protests of every rational cell in his brain, two distance-eating steps forward and his hands are going down for the barrel of the gun...

...and Rorschach takes another step back and drops down in a duck and

it's all happening at once and

the muzzle flashes and

there's a tremendous noise and

Dan's hands are sure and certain around the barrel, gloves dulling the shockwave through his arms as the slug – god, it was loaded with slugs, not even stupid buckshot or something – thuds into something else in the alley, at a higher angle than was intended. High enough?

He's shaking so hard he can barely breathe, barely speak. He doesn't bother to wrench the gun out of the dazed man's grip, not yet, just holds it in place, only trusting his control so far. His voice wavers and he must sound weak and afraid but he doesn't _care_. "Rorschach?"

A half-second of agonizing silence, then a response, stilted and brief: "Fine. Glancing shot. No serious damage."

No _serious_ damage.

"The hell did you think you were _doing__!_" Dan finally explodes, tearing the shotgun from uncoordinated hands. The man stares up at him, eyes wide with terror. "He just saved your life, you _jackass._"

An indistinct muttering. Shock is clearly setting in. Dan can't find it in himself to care. "Say that again?"

"One of them."

Silence. The shotgun is heavy in Dan's inverted grip. Further down the alley, he hears a rustle of fabric; trench coat being put back into order, collar flipped up. Footsteps start to echo, retreating. They're out of range before Dan sighs heavily, twisting the weapon in his grip to lie back against his shoulder. "God, that's..."

The man shivers below him, hand clamped back onto his shoulder. There's a lot of blood. Dan understands Rorschach's urgency now, of getting to the scene of this particular crime as quickly as possible. They'd still been too late. The self-righteous speech dies on Dan's tongue; the idiot will understand soon enough as it is. He's not sure if that makes him feel better or not.

He turns to the side, the cape of his costume twisting around him like a shadow in the poor light of one tiny flashlight. "It was a mask," he says, eyes fixed on the injured man's through his goggles. "Get yourself to a hospital."

"You're... you're not going to help me?"

The shadow falters, but keeps walking.

*

Dan climbs up into Archie, pulling the hatch shut behind him. His partner is sitting in the copilot's seat, arms across his knees, staring straight ahead at absolutely nothing. It's a very familiar pose, Dan realizes. It's one he's caught himself in more than usual lately. The fedora is on the dash, and the mask is torn on one side, a neat slug-burn splitting the fabric. It's oozing white down the side of his face.

There's a lot Dan could say. Something about how ungrateful people can be jumps to mind. Something about just deserves. Something about understanding what he'd been trying to prevent, and why.

Something about the feel of the muzzle firing from inside his gloved hands, and how the sound of the report would follow him for days, and how much restraint it'd taken to not turn the shotgun back on its wielder in the half-second it'd taken Rorschach to respond to him.

Instead, he just pushes his cowl back from his head, settles into the chair next to his friend, pulls Archie back up into the sky. Somewhere safe.

"That's going to keep happening," Rorschach mutters, voice dark with some unidentifiable emotion.

"Probably. It was the mask that set him off."

"Real face isn't much better right now," the smaller man counters, reaching to peel the mask back, settle it in front of himself on the dash – start rooting through a miscellaneous supply kit for something that'll allow him to repair the tear in it, re-fuse the latex. The casualness of the action startles Dan – the mask never comes off voluntarily, not around him, not around anyone.

Blue eyes faintly ringed in something like red and something like gold glance up at him from a hollow and bruised face, all pale and pale and pale and incongruous ginger, and it's the first time Dan's seen it since Rorschach came around from the fever. He stares for just a second, mouth hanging slightly open- then turns to the controls, all business, taking them home.

*


	6. Day 11

*

Two days pass very quickly, and the patrols leave them both exhausted – mentally more than physically – and happy to sleep away large portions of the day. It’s not as if Dan has a job to get to, and if Rorschach’s daylight persona has one, he can’t really turn up the way he is now. The sleep is restless and the dreams that inhabit it unpleasant, and so it drags on longer than it has to most days.

There’s a new map pinned up inside of Archie, now – large blue dots drawn on with marker to show the location of every hospital, emergency clinic and walk-in doctor in the city. Smaller red dots showing the site of each attack. The original map had been his idea, to help them transport the injured to the help they need as quickly as possible. Rorschach had started adding the other marks, trying to work something out, and Dan doesn’t see any reason to stop him.

Rorschach, who is still wearing the mask despite it very nearly catching him a shotgun slug in the face that first night. Despite Dan’s every argument. He frowns over his work – tiny tools deep in the casings of his goggles, the kitchen light blaringly bright from above. There is no shame in admitting that he worries. His partner had, at least, conceded that Dan should be the one to approach the victims first, less threatening in his intentionally intimidating armor for the clearly human face set into it.

There’s the squeak of the pantry door swinging open, metal of cans being shuffled against one another. Rorschach settles into the chair across from him, opening the can, not seeming to care what’s in it. Mask goes up above his nose. He’s been eating constantly, and the radio had said to expect that, but Dan can’t help but wonder how he manages to do it when nothing tastes like anything. Except for the sugar, apparently, but he can’t live on a metric ton of sugar per day and nothing else.

Daniel continues working, the silence between them not pointed or significant – just functional, as he’s deep into delicate electronics and the other man is too busy eating to use his mouth for anything else.

The fork hits the bottom of the can a moment later, and the can hits the table. “Something wrong with your goggles?”

Dan nods abstractedly, narrowing his eyes at the miniscule innards. Is that a bent pin on that chip, there? “Night vision’s not working right. Hasn’t been since we started going out again.”

“Explains the flashlight then. I was wondering.”

Dan glances up, something vaguely like guilt shifting over his face. If he hadn’t turned on the flashlight… “Yeah. Stupid, I know. I spent all that time tuning Archie up and didn’t bother to check my own gear. Must have taken a knock the night everything happened.”

There’s a shift in the figure across from him, shirtsleeved forearms coming to rest on the table. Leaning forward slightly. “You were out in that?” The tone is indistinctly puzzled, as if the fact hadn’t even occurred to him up to this point.

“Yeah, of course.” Dan isn’t really paying too much attention to the befuddlement, answering conversationally on autopilot. It _is_ a bent pin. Damn it all. “They were everywhere. Took about an hour to get to where I was, though. I was just lucky, wasn’t too far from the ship.”

There’s another stretch of silence, and Dan’s seriously considering which would be more of a hassle – trying to fix the pin and potentially damage something around it, or pull the chip and go through the rigmarole of soldering a new one on in the cramped little space.

“…It’s good that you weren’t hurt.”

It’s quiet, and grim, and Dan looks up from his contemplations, suddenly a hundred percent in the here and now. There was something bare in those few words that he isn’t used to hearing, and he feels suddenly like he’s just grabbed a doorknob after an hour of shuffling around on dry carpet – something tingling in the tips of his fingers, sending warnings straight to the back of his brain.

The can stares up at him from the table. Plain white beans. Tasteless. He wonders for a moment what other senses have gone by the wayside.

He hears it, in the silence after: _-I’m glad you don’t have to live like this.-_

And, coward that he can be at times, he blusters it away. “Well, I mean. The armor helped. I’d be lying if I said they didn’t _try_ to get a piece of me. Just glad they hadn’t figured out to go for the face…”

Complete and utter stillness from the man across from him.

“God though, that would’ve been bad – both of us laid up at the same time.” Beat. Blink. “Especially considering how many people aren’t making it.”

Dan turns back to the goggles, poking lightly at the pin with the tip if the miniature screwdriver, but he’s not really thinking about solder and circuits anymore. He hears rather than sees his partner shift back into the seat again, hands coming to rest gripping the edge of the table.  
“What?”

“Hm? Oh, just that a lot of the people turning up at the hospitals aren’t… getting through it. Seems to be kind of hit or miss, they don’t know what determines…” and Dan trails off, suddenly staring at his friend’s back where he’s shoved himself up from the table in a violent motion almost too fast to track.

Fingers curl around the edge of the opposite counter, white on white. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want to worry you. And you were already out of the woods, so…”

“Forget about me,” and if it’s possible, his knuckles go even whiter in his grip. “We’ve been taking people to those hospitals every _night._”

“Right,” Dan says slowly, setting the screwdriver down. “Because they’ve been in need of medical attention.”

Rorschach is already in motion, headed to the coat rack where the rest of his costume is hanging, twitchy and agitated. “You’re not a doctor, Daniel.”

“I don’t think it takes a doctor to see that these people need-“

“Not what I mean,” and he’s whirlwinded back into the room, belting his coat. Hat in hand, then on head, in one smooth motion. “You’re_ not_ a doctor. You couldn’t have provided better care than a _hospital_.”

It takes a moment for the implication to sink in. Dan sits back in his chair away from the project in front of him, eyes unfocusing into middle distance. “One data point doesn’t make a tr-“

“Unless,” Rorschach interrupts from the doorway to the basement, “The only difference in care was that you actually _wanted_ me to survive.”

A second. A minute?

“Oh_ hell._”

“Yes.”

*


	7. Day 12

*

It was a mostly fruitless night, questions going unanswered and is that because the people being asked honestly didn't know, or because they were willing to deal with a broken finger or two rather than spill their secrets?

It's impossible to tell. The premise they're working from is so terrifying and horrible – mankind at its worst – and things are getting a little disconnected upstairs. Dan sits at his kitchen table again – and for a second feels like an actor in one of those bizarre avant-garde plays that only take place in one set – cowl pushed back, goggles around his neck, but otherwise back in uniform, despite it being early in the afternoon. Rorschach may have never even loosened his scarf between last night and now. Dan is once again struck by the apparent normalcy of it all.

...and the other thing they'd found last night, other than lack of information, was an increased number of pale bodies dead where they'd fallen, all over the streets. Natural causes, looked like. It made their night easier, but there was no way to tell if they were test subjects or just carriers, and it was a trend he didn't like the implications of.

"This isn't a good idea," Rorschach insists, one gloved finger tracing a groove on the table. It's almost a nervous tic, but Rorschach doesn't _have_ nervous tics.

"Probably not," Dan agrees, reaching back behind his head to pull up the cowl. "But we haven't been in weeks, and they may be onto this, too – might have more information than we've managed to find. And they’re probably worried, the way we just dropped off the face of the city..."

A disbelieving grunt, and nothing more.

"Anyway, I'm worried about them, too." He still can't get that recorded radio call out of his head; he's never heard people scream like that. "One meeting. We find out if they know anything. Then if you want to go back to ground, we do."

*

The table is full again, a fact not lost on the others as they settle in and wait for the meeting to start, their eyes shifting again and again to the two occupied seats nearest the door. They'd probably been written off as a loss, assumed killed in the first attack, not expected to return – but the chairs haven't been removed yet, cleared to give the remaining vigilantes more elbow room. That’s interesting.

The table is full and the meeting starts – there's a brief acknowledgment from Ozymandias of their existence, distant but most likely honest. The subject matter is obvious and unavoidable, and Rorschach can only listen for so long as they reiterate over and over again the obvious things, the things he already _knows_, the things they've discovered by throwing themselves into the thick of it. By not hiding from it.

He unwraps a sugar cube and, with a deft motion he's been practicing for days, lifts the mask, pops it in, and drops the mask again, flat of his hand keeping his chin hidden all the while. Jupiter is going on about having trouble telling the subjects from the carriers, out on the street, a great moral tragedy waiting to unfold. He crushes the sugar wrapper in his hand, drops it to the tabletop. "There's a bigger problem."

A shifting silence settles over the room at his interruption, and they all turn to face him. Daniel takes an audible breath off to the side, probably hoping he's not about to do anything stupid.

"People are being killed. In the hospitals. They go in with straightforward injuries and a virus, and they don't come out. We need to find out why. And stop it."

No response at first, then Ozymandias nods, tapping the tabletop with his fingernails. "I had noticed that as well. I investigated, of course, but nothing turned up. At this point it seems to simply be the growing pangs of a medical community trying to cobble together a treatment program for a disease they don't understand."

A low growl from behind the mask, and Rorschach feels Daniel glance at him, worried. "People who don't go to the hospitals, don't die."

And that's an exaggeration, yes. He doesn't have all the information. But it's truthful in that he is a person who didn't go to the hospital, and that's as far as he's willing to think, certainly more than he's willing to say on the subject.

Ozymandias doesn't respond at first, just narrows his eyes, apparently in thought. Glances down at the wrappers on the table in front of Rorschach, then up to the mask. There's a stretch of silence.

"You've gone through a lot of those today, haven't you?"

Daniel shifts in his seat; Rorschach doesn't move. They both know what's coming.

"What is that, seven? In the last half an hour? You usually get through an entire meeting on one or two. And your mask is barely moving. Responds to heat, you said once?"

The leather of his gloves creases where Rorschach's gripping the table.

"When were you going to see fit to tell us?"

Jupiter stiffens in her chair, looking up in surprise; the inhuman man next to her is uninterested, and across the table, the Comedian barks a laugh around the ever-present cigar, rolling his eyes. "Figures," he mutters darkly, clearly amused more than anything else.

Daniel bites his tongue, hard, and waits.

"...didn't think it _mattered__,_" Rorschach finally grinds out from between his teeth, because it's the truth, and because Ozymandias may not be the smartest man in the world but he's sold on his own propaganda and a denial won't wash, not now, the evidence obvious in the sluggish and almost imperceptible shifting of inkblots. Stupid, to not think of that. Really stupid.

"Neither did I," the smooth-talker replies instantly, too fast, eyes lit up with something dangerous. He pushes himself out of his chair, palms flat on the table in front of him. "Until my secretary came back from her doctor's visit... promptly went mad and killed three people. Tried to make me the fourth."

It's an accusation, clear as day, hanging in the air between them.

Rorschach is up like a shot, hands in his pockets, out the door into the hallway before anyone can even process what's just happened. Bad idea, he'd said. This was a bad idea...

...from down the hallway he hears Daniel pushing his chair out and, in a breach of politeness and etiquette and procedure he's never heard from him in these meetings, snarling at Ozymandias: "You know, you can really be a dick sometimes."

Then footsteps, jogging to catch up with him.

*

Back in the meeting room, Ozymandias sighs heavily, leveraging himself back down into his chair. "And he is far too 'nice'," he mutters, more to himself than anyone else. "It's going to get him killed. But," louder now, intended for the others in the room. "At least now we know where they've been the last two weeks."

No response. "Any further business?"

The door swings back open suddenly, hard, bouncing against the wall with a splintering, resounding bang. Rorschach takes a step into the room, pointing a gloved finger directly at Ozymandias. "Doctor's visit, you said. Was it private or a hospital?"

Nite Owl's behind him, lingering in the doorframe, a look of exasperation on his face – but a little bit of steel, too. He wants the answer to the question just as much, for reasons that are unclear.

Ozymandias just raises an eyebrow. "Hospital, I believe. She was new to the city, didn't have a private physician yet."

"_Which hospital?_"

And Ozymandias tells him.

*

"Look, man, I'm sorry about that, I had no idea he'd-"

Rorschach waves him off as they stalk through the fading afternoon sunlight back to the Owlship. "No apology needed. I'm getting used to it." Beat. "You were right though. We did get information that we needed."

Dan reaches for his remote control, uses it to bring the ship down, considering. "Huh. Yeah, I guess we did."

"Daniel?"

The ship is on ground level now, and the hatch opens obediently. "What?"

"No more meetings."

*

They’re almost back to the warehouse tunnel when Dan's hand knocks against the radio transmitter and something occurs to him, clawing its way out of his subconscious. Something had felt off about all of this ever since they'd left the meeting, and now he knows what it is.

"I got a call from him on the radio," he offers into the relative silence that rests just above the background noise of the engines and air exchange. "When that was going on, with his secretary. You were still completely out of it."

He senses Rorschach turn his head towards him, but there's no audible response.

"You were still out of it, but she was back at work already?"

The engines cough lightly, he'll have to remember to check that later.

Dan starts counting out the seconds in his head.

"...hrm. Good point. Whatever they're doing might be stabilizing the infection. At first."

"That doesn't make sense though, does it?" Dan pushes the cowl back from his head, runs his hand through his hair. Thinking. "If they're trying to kill people, I mean. Maybe they really are trying to help, and just don't know what they’re doing?"

Silence for a moment, then: "Maybe they don't care."

Dan nods, and drops Archie into the tunnel. That engine check needs to happen sooner rather than later; as soon as the sun goes down, they have a lead to follow.

*

It's a civilian bar, Daniel reminds him as they land, across from the hospital Ozymandias had named. Not underworld. These are off-shift doctors and nurses and orderlies and if they don't have use of their fingers in the morning it could cost other, innocent lives. And it feels bizarre and wrong, walking into this sort of place and not seeing drugs and prostitutes and shady deals going on in the corner, human refuse buying with cash the satisfaction it cannot obtain anywhere else – just ordinary people exhausted from their ordinary jobs.

But this isn't really a 'criminal' matter, as such.

And it's an easy enough thing anyway – just avoid the patrons visibly out for a good time and stick to the corners, where there's more than sorrows and tiredness being drowned. Guilty consciences. The weight of knowing too much. _Fear_, like aluminum in the mouth, drawing eyes down to tabletops.

The third table is productive. The man sitting behind it, alone, staring into his fourth glass of liquor, has been waiting for someone to talk to about all of this, even if he didn't actually know it. The conscience can be a powerful thing, can betray the conscious mind's decisions and all of the subconscious mind's survival instincts. Id, ego. Superego. The moral compass points true north, this time.

"Look, I... I don't want it coming back that I was the one who told you this but... I just can't deal with it anymore. It's too big."

Daniel nods. Rorschach shifts his head to one side, a visual indication that he's listening. There's something sharp in the movement too – he's listening and the other man had better damn well keep talking.

"I... I think it might be the director."

*

_Now_ it's time for the underworld bars. If there is a conspiracy here - and the young orderly had confirmed that there is - and it goes all the way to the top, they've reached the limit of what just knowing the name of the hospital will get them. To find out who's pulling the puppet strings, they'll need to go deeper.

And god, but this is repetitive. They walk in. Someone curses under their breath. He takes up a position by the door. There are snaps, like dry twigs; there is sometimes broken glass; there is sometimes the wet crunch of noses breaking against walls. Sometimes people scream. Only occasionally do they provide useful information. Someone pulls a knife.

Wait - that's not supposed to -

His hand comes up a second too late, missing the man's wrist by an inch, and Dan has just enough time to think _(shit, going for my face)_ before he's shoved aside and sees the blade come straight down into Rorschach's raised arm

_(God he's fast)_

through the coat and through the jacket underneath. Clear down to bone, if Dan had to guess from the angle of the knife, but there's no blood– just a clatter as it's wrenched free, taken, dropped to the floor. "Stupid," Rorschach rumbles, and it's unclear whether he's referring to his own injury or to the fact that the man had gone after Dan first, but Dan would guess the latter if he were forced to guess at all; Rorschach is just about trembling with rage.

And before five minutes are up, the screams have died and his coat is splattered and they have all the information they'll need. The proprietor is looking on in horror. He's not dead, someone says. Call for an ambulance.

"Come on," Dan says, thumbing towards the door, shaken. Quiet. "Before anyone notices that none of that's yours."

*

"Is that bothering you?" Daniel asks, false idleness in his tone as they reach the ship, watching the other man's twitchiness with an obviously wary eye.

Rorschach looks down at himself, at the blood drying across the front of his coat. It's not an excessive amount – he's seen and worn worse – but it smells like a slaughterhouse, cloying and heavy and far too potent for the quantity. He's clutching his arm but he knows he can't blame his dizziness on blood loss anymore.

It'll be worse when they're closed up in the ship.

"...no."

*

"Christ," Dan mutters, peeling back the fabric of the jacket and the shirt underneath. They're back in the guest room of his brownstone, a suture kit spread out on the bed. There's only one chair in the room and Dan's claimed it, forcing Rorschach to sit on the edge of the bed opposite him. His arm looks like it's started trying to grow a wing, a broad lateral section of skin and muscle sheared nearly off, anchored at the bone. "This is going to take forever to heal, you know." And there's a touch of anger there, bubbling to the surface. The cold arm in his hands doesn't flinch or jump when he puts the first stitch in, not being halfway as gentle as he's capable of.

The second stitch is in before Rorschach responds: "You wouldn't have healed at all." Flat. No baggage evident. Just a statement of fact, cold and practical.

"It would have nicked me, bounced off the edges of the cowl. Don't try to justify it. I've spent the last two weeks trying to keep you alive, and damned if you're going to throw it away to save me some cuts and bruises."

There's a strange motion to Rorschach's head, the same motion Dan saw earlier in the night when he'd been covered in blood and stinking of it and obviously bothered, no matter what he'd said. Dan swallows tightly past a lump in his throat. Has a sudden vision of a kind and mild secretary tearing through three people before she could be stopped, fingernails and teeth and madness and if _she_ could have done so much damage then what about-

Dan puts in the rest of the stitches in silence.

*

"He had a gun."

It's twenty or so minutes later, and Dan is just finishing the wrappings, cutting a piece of tape to secure the trailing end. He looks up. "What?"

Again, a surprising move: Rorschach reaches up and pushes his mask above his nose and then, after a moment's hesitation, peels it off completely. Fixes real eyes on Dan's, eerily luminous in the low light.

_(Just reflection,)_ Dan thinks. _(Like a cat's.)_

And Rorschach speaks slowly and carefully. "Knife was a distraction. He was going for a gun, in his belt. Pistol, nine millimeter. Automatic or semi, couldn't tell. He would have shot you in the face."

Dan presses the tape down with his thumbs, circling them over the loose ends. His eyes don't leave his friend's for a long moment; he eventually looks down, and shudders. "Thank you, then."

Tired, tired voice matches tired eyes. "Welcome."

Dan stands to gather the supplies back into the kit; he's a good deal taller than Rorschach under normal circumstances but just now he's positively looming. Rorschach doesn't make it any less pronounced by turning and dropping back against the bed, no move made to sort out the blankets. He'd probably be just as comfortable on a park bench, and Dan wonders idly if he's ever had to be. "I just don't want to see you get killed, after all of this. Just because you don't bleed doesn't mean you're invincible."

"Pretty close," he mumbles into the shadows.

Dan winces. "No, not even in the vicinity. Not even on the same _planet_. And what happens to the people out there, if you're not around to protect them?"

Those burning eyes slide back over to Dan again, intent and serious and just a little bit dazed but no less intimidating for it. "You do a good enough job, Daniel. City'd be in good hands." He shifts, pulling the injured arm across himself. "Anyway, doesn't matter. Dead already."

Dan won't be sure, later, exactly what it was in his brain that snapped wide open at the statement, which circuit it was that popped. There's no thought. "No," he growls, low in his throat, sounding more like Rorschach than himself, and he's suddenly leaned over the smaller man, propped up with one hand and one knee and the other foot still on the floor, scrabbling for his partner's uninjured hand and pressing it – and his own – against the still chest below.

There's a sound something like a warning, sing-song and low, but Dan doesn't move and the threat doesn't follow up, hanging empty in the air above them.

  
art by [Liodain](../../../users/Liodain)

  
Dan waits, holding the hand in place, chill seeping up through the thin fabric of the shirt, until he feels it: a single beat, lazy and struggling.

"There," he says, eyes just as fierce through his glasses as they've ever been through his goggles in the middle of a life-or-death battle. In a way, that might well be what this is. "You're alive. You have something to lose. Start acting like it."

And a month ago, this kind of courage might have landed Dan a broken nose at best, a concussion at worst.

A month ago, everything was different.

Rorschach doesn't move, just stares up at Dan with a patchwork expression of defiance and anger. And some flavor of loyalty, preventing the other two from taking center stage. Some confusion, too. His eyes are bright and the bruises are mostly faded and there's something fascinating about what the pallor does to smooth out the planes of his face, to make the eyes and hair stand out unnaturally, like beacons or lightning or a wildfire in the night and...

...and Dan drops his hand, pulls back onto his feet at the edge of the bed, mumbling apologies. Too much, too far into the personal space he knows the other man values over most everything else, and lingered too long on the bare encouragement of _not getting hit in the face_. Ludicrous.

_(Not getting hit in the face, or worse.)_

(You saw the way he was twitching, earlier. You’re an idiot.)

Yeah, pretty much.

"Good night, Daniel," and Dan isn't sure, can't tell from looking at the carefully blank face, if it's a genuine well-wishing or a dismissal.

He nods, heads for the door, has it half-closed behind him when he hears an indistinct mutter from inside the room, muffled by one side of a pillow.

"Not dead."

"Good," and it's no less a mumble, but he's certain that it carries.

*

 


	8. Day 13

*

Dexter Jackson leans back in his swiveling chair; spins it to face the window. Scrubs the palms of his hands over his eyes. It's been a long day. Long week. Two weeks tomorrow, actually, and the clock is marching its way onward to midnight. He's considering this, watching the second hand sweep, when there's suddenly a reflection in the glass – two reflections, and the curved glass distorts them, makes them more unrecognizable than they usually are.

He spins in the chair, facing back into the room – and with all this horror movie _bullshit_ he's been dealing with lately, he half expects them to have vanished, like ghosts appearing briefly in a shaving mirror with the sole intent of getting him to gasp and turn and be scared shitless for the benefit of an audience somewhere.

The ghosts aren't ghosts. Nothing incorporeal could generate as much raw animal menace as the smaller one standing far too close to him or as much cold fury as the one in the goggles and cape, quietly pulling the door closed behind him. They aren't ghosts and they aren't going to vanish and _Christ_, they match the hazy descriptions so many of their new VT-10 admissions have given, masks who've taken up some sort of personal vendetta against the goddamned zombie virus and...

"Ah, shit."

*

"I take it you know what we're here to discuss, then," and it's as controlled as Rorschach's ever been, as much restraint as he's ever shown. It'd taken them nearly an hour of ducking security, searching out back stairwells, picking blocked doors, short-circuiting elevators, and the odd bit of windowsill walking to navigate the maze of the hospital all the way to the top floor undetected, and he's not going to risk them leaving without their prize. Not this time. "And every time you say you have no idea what I'm talking about, going to break another bone."

"And before you say 'you must be joking'," Daniel says from in front of the door, goggle lenses shiny and black and endless like the shells of dark, lumbering beetles, "He isn't."

Rorschach counts in his head. To five. Gives the man that long to start talking on his own, then takes a single menacing step forward. That does the trick.

"All right, okay, _okay_. This is about the fatality rates, right?"

He can feel the inkblots shift, lazy and slow, as he narrows his eyes under the mask. "And the insanity. People losing control, degenerating. Killing. After visiting your hospital."

Jackson looks honestly surprised for a moment, sincerely confused, and that's hard to fake. Hard, but not impossible. "No. Don't lay that one on us. That's happening on its own."

A beat or two of silence, no matter how it's measured. "You're lying," Daniel says from the door, and there's a faint thread of fear in his voice, and that's no good – they can't put their cards on the table like that, have to stay in control of the situation. Rorschach shoots Daniel a sharp look that he completely misses, due to the mask. Advantages, disadvantages.

"No. He's telling the truth." It's a rough grumble, and he's surprised to hear a matching note of fear underlining it, somewhere buried in the atonal registers. He turns his head sharply back towards the hospital director still seated in his ridiculous swivel chair, as if inextricably rooted to it. "What causes it?"

"We don't know exactly. I should remind you that we didn't build the virus, we've just been asked to quarantine it and study it..."

"Asked by the city government. The mayor?"

A nod, punctuated by smaller, less voluntary shakes. "The best guess we have is that it's mutating out there, learning how to cross into the brain on its own. It seems to be a spontaneous mutation; there's never really any warning."

Daniel shifts by the door, crossing his arms over his chest. "And the people who are dying?"

Jackson looks to the floor, shakes his head. Looks up, wearing a different face. It's subtle, but they've both been reading subtleties for years. They're good at it. "We're just trying to help them. They don't stand a chance of survival on their own; we just haven't found the right treatment yet-"

"Lie." Rorschach glances over to Daniel, hands flexing in his gloves. "You see the difference?"

"I'm starting to," and the goggled eyes lower dangerously.

"I don't know what you're-"

And before he can finish, Jackson finds himself swept from his chair and slammed bodily into the wall. There's a hand twisted in the collar of his coat, supporting a portion of his weight so that he won't choke to death before he can talk. There's another hand around his throat. It's suddenly ungloved, and pressing in with just enough force to make sure the intent – and the significance - are understood. "May just skip breaking bones entirely," Rorschach hisses into his ear, flexing cold fingers threateningly.

For a moment, all the man can do is gasp and sputter, but as soon as he realizes that he's not actually had his airway cut off – not yet – his brain starts working again, and the chill of the grip around his throat sinks in. He rolls his eyes down as far as they'll go, and catches a glimpse of white white white sharp against all the dark fabric and shadows of the dimly lit room, and he chokes, this time from fear. "Oh god, you're..."

The fingers tighten incrementally. "One of the first down. Not dead yet, as you can see. You're lying. What. Are you. _Doing to them_."

Across the room, Daniel shifts uncomfortably, and Rorschach knows that he knows: he would never reveal this much if he intended to let the man live.

Still harboring hope, Jackson coughs against the grip, struggling weakly. "They asked us to... to find a cure for it, to reverse it completely. Promised us more funding if we could do it. We're city General, we're underfunded, understaffed-" And he coughs again, because the fingers have gotten that much tighter. "But reversing it, god, we've tried everything, every treatment we can think of, crazy things, nothing's working..."

"They all could have lived with it. Didn't need it reversed."

"People come to us to be fixed," the reply chokes out around rapidly bluing lips, "To be made whole... stabilizing the condition doesn't make you whole. You should know that, better than anyone..." A sharp laugh, delirium setting in. "Not like you'll have a choice, once they find out you're infected. You'll be quarantined with all the others. Maybe you'll even walk away whole. Maybe not..."

A long second, punctuated by sucking gasps through what's left of the man's airway.

"Rather stay like this, than be one of a thousand dead guinea pigs on the road to normalcy."

The grip loosens, and Jackson is dragged away from the wall, hauled towards the window. Desperately: "They're not guinea pigs..."

"No," says Daniel from the door, breaking resolve shaking in his voice but still compelled to speak. "They're human beings."

"And you've betrayed your oaths." Rorschach is at the window now, and his gloved hand grasps Jackson's by the back of it. He curls the other man's hand forcefully around the handle, using it to shove the window along its runner.

"Christ, what are you..." And it's a stupid question, because he already knows. Only his prints will be on the handle. It'll be perfect and neat and hasn't he already considered it in the worst moments anyway, too many screams echoing in his memory?

Rorschach hauls him up by the back of his jacket, forces his scrabbling feet to find purchase on the window ledge for lack of anywhere else to settle. A low growl: "Making sure the last thing you do, is done right."

Daniel sucks in a breath across the room.

Rorschach pushes.

*

"_Christ!_" Dan explodes, away from the door and across the room in three long steps, gloved hands coming up to rest on the windowsill - then pulling back as if burned, hanging in the air in front of him. He doesn't look down. "I can't believe you actually-"

"Thought I made my intentions clear enough," comes the low reply, and Rorschach is at the desk now, hauling an old Selectric into the center of the heavy green blotter. The glove's back on.

"I thought you were just trying to scare him..."

_(No. You **hoped** he was just trying to scare him. You didn't actually think it, not for a second.)_

(So why didn't you move?)

Rorschach's digging in the desk drawer now, all business. He comes up with a stack of hospital letterhead. "I'd scared him enough already. Got everything I needed from him."

Dan reaches up to press his fingers to his temples; he's blocked by the cowl and the goggles. Digs his fingers under the band instead. "You just... killed him."

A noncommittal grunt, cranking the first sheet of paper into the roller.

"You... Damn it, Rorschach."

"Mn," Rorschach replies tightly, fingers working slowly and jerkily against the typewriter. The response, when it comes, is offhand and dismissive; An excuse, but far from the real reason. "He wanted to put me in his 'program'. That's as good as a death threat. Self-defense."

"He wasn't exactly holding a gun on you," and it's sarcasm and it's anger and it's just a little bit of worry.

"Daniel." He pauses, jamming down on the same key again, nodding to himself when this time, it unsticks and strikes. "He was threatening my life. Or does that not matter anymore?"

Dan grimaces as his partner turns to face him directly, and damn that mask but he's sure he'd be seeing challenge on the face under it if he could see anything at all. Daring him to stand behind what he'd said the night before, to place value on a life that barely is one. And really, Dan should be thrilled that Rorschach is giving a damn about his own life again - or hell, at all for that matter - but all he can see behind his eyes is the moment Jackson's feet slipped off the ledge and gravity took back its own.

"Of course it matters," and the twinge that Dan had been trying to rub away magnifies instantly into a full-blown tension headache. He pushes back the cowl and kneads circles into the sides of his head; if there are cameras in there that can function in light this low, they're already screwed. "But if you hadn't done all the goddamned theatrics, he never would have known."

It's the 'e' that's sticking, Dan observes distractedly, waiting for a response.

"Needed it for dramatic effect." Matter-of-fact, unruffled. "Had to encourage him to confess."

There's a long silence and a longer silence, and when Dan speaks again, there's real fear in his voice - the first time he's felt truly afraid of the man across from him in this whole mess and it's nothing to do with any virus and everything to do with the decision Rorschach made just three minutes ago, up in his head, in his perfectly_ normal _and uninfected brain. "So he... you mean to say, let me make sure I have this right. He _died _for the sake of your_ dramatic effect_?"

"No," and it's quiet; subdued even. And immediate. Fingers pause over the typewriter keys. "He died because he killed dozens of people. Who came here for help. Who came here _trusting_." A single key, struck hard. The paper is pulled free, set aside; another threaded in. "And he did it for _money._"

The room holds its breath. Dan drops his eyes to the floor, almost ashamed of his outburst. Almost. "All right, okay, fine. But we don't usually-"

"I know."

And just like that, he's cut off, spared having to actually say it.

_(We don't usually throw people out of windows.)_

The typewriter clicks and whirrs.

_(We don't kill people.)_

Dan bites into the leather over the knuckle of one finger, and nods.

*

"Shouldn't we be doing this somewhere else?" Awkward attempt to change the subject, but it'll do. Dan's never been so glad for the opacity of his goggles; he's sure there are things visible behind them that he doesn't want seen, not right now. "As soon as they find him they'll be up here."

A headshake. "We're twelve floors up. Take a while to identify him. Might not manage to until these are found." The fedora nods down towards the typewriter.

Dan nods, looking straight out the window, across to the nearest rooftop. Feels an extraordinary urge to _get out,_ to run or jump or fly, anything to escape. Looks down, finally, instead.

_(What the-)_

It's not just the fall, he realizes, a cold sickness settling its grip deep in his gut. It's barely the fall at all. The fall has done its damage, and taken its price, and left its gruesome abstract signature scrawled over the sidewalk. But like blood and chum stirred into shark-infested waters, the half-exploded body below is drawing all the monsters out of the shadows, pale and dirty and moving like animals but undeniably two arms, two legs - faces that were human, once, with dark holes in their faces in all the right spots, covered in blood both fresh and dried. And they're descending on the scene below with more speed than he's ever given them credit for.

There won't be much left _to_ identify.

Dan turns away from the window sharply, hand to his mouth, fighting down waves of nausea for the second time in two weeks- and he used to have such a strong stomach, too. It wouldn't be half as bad if they weren't making so much noise, keening and ringing sounds carrying up twelve floors on nonexistent wind. If he couldn't still see, in his head, the mangled, pale-white limbs, clawing into the bloody mess, alien and incomprehensible.

If he didn't feel compelled to glance over at Rorschach, hunched over an electric typewriter at the dead man's desk, forging a press release and reaching up to shift his hat further back on his head when it slips a bit too far forward into his view. Every movement is precise and exact and deliberate. Controlled. But how much control can you ascribe to someone who'd just thrown a man out of a twelfth floor window, who had been shaking so visibly at the smell of blood that even Dan, coming off of his adrenaline high at nearly being knifed in the face and badly shaken himself, had noticed?

If. There are a lot of ifs.

"Deserved it," Rorschach interrupts his train of thought, neatly predicting it. He can hear the carnage down in the street just as well. Doesn't seem bothered.

Taking a stabilizing breath, Dan makes an indistinct motion with his hands. "Maybe. Probably. I don't know if anybody deserves that, but... look, I know this is all a lot more personal for you-"

"No idea, Daniel." The typing stops, abruptly. Then begins again, faster, more jarring. "We've brought seventeen people to this hospital ourselves. Probably dead now."

"I..." ...nothing to say to that, really, and he trails off, leaning forward to plant his hands on the edge of the desk.

A long few moments, then another pause in the typing, as if considering something. Then, like it's escaping from within tightly clenched hands: "I knew how bad it was."

Dan looks up, and something in the tone makes him lift a hand to slide his goggles down. "How bad what was?"

Rorschach doesn't reply at first, hitting a few more keys sharply. Then, without pausing in the keystrokes: "Leg. There was a lot of blood. It wasn't good. I was close to here, and thought briefly about coming. Would have hidden my clothes in the alley behind the building, so they wouldn't know who I was. Just another homeless transient who can't pay."

There's that sound again, low in his throat, and Dan's realizing that it might not be what he thinks it is.

Rorschach misses a beat finally, faltering over that damned letter 'e'. "Maybe you would have found them someday. Maybe you would even have figured out what happened. Maybe not."

Silence.

…to never know… to have escaped to safety himself knowing that there were others still out there, to have hidden away and survived while his friend died out there somewhere and to _never know_...

Dan pushes away from the desk, hard. Turns away, bringing his goggles back up into place. There are a lot of things he wants to say to that, a lot of questions that want asking. The only thing he manages is: "Why didn't you?"

Behind him, there's a final keystroke; it sounds like a gunshot, muffled against skin. The paper is cranked out of the typewriter and the gentle whirr of its electrics dies from the room as it's switched off. There’s a protracted pause that sounds a lot like a shrug. "I don't trust doctors."

_(But he does trust you.)_

Even that, though, is a manipulative implication. The entire thing’s manipulative and Dan knows it; Rorschach might find the idea of an anonymous death serving no purpose whatsoever to be _distasteful_, might worry over Dan’s reaction, but it’s by no means his greatest grievance with the man currently being picked over down in the street. And it doesn’t matter, because he’s known almost since the day they met just where all of Dan’s buttons are, and how to push them_ just so_ to make it personal, to make him see and understand and, very often, agree with his points.

And, damn it, it isn’t fair – but it is effective. Because even as Dan knows he’s being manipulated, all he can think about is standing in a dingy alley surrounded by death and filth, one glove tucked under his arm, running that strange shifting fabric between his fingers and wondering and worrying and _never knowing._

Ever.

“Here,” and there’s a rustle of papers in his direction. From below, there’s a siren; not an ambulance. No need, the body’s all of three feet from the hospital door. Police. Swat, possibly. Driving away the scavengers. “Read these over.”

Dan takes the sheets, noticing but not remarking on the way they’re shivering in the air like leaves caught in a resonant fall wind. Not remarking, but keeping one eye on the other even as he skims through the two letters. One is shorter, a standard-issue suicide note intended for the staff in general. The other details Jackson’s actions, the source of his instructions, the promises of funding, the mayor’s involvement. It’s directed to the press, and will likely bring down the entire house of cards. Both are written with restraint, without any of Rorschach’s usual play with colorful metaphor.

“They’re fine,” he says, handing the sheets back. He wants to say ‘they’re a lie,’ but the smaller man is starting to shake more visibly now, dropping the sheets onto the desk and burying his hands in his coat pockets, and he doesn’t want to push or agitate. “You okay?”

No response at first, Rorschach glancing around as if he’s suddenly woken from a dream and has no idea how he came to be… here. Then a short, curt nod. Words that don’t agree with the affirmative. “…cold. Not sure.”

Dan furrows his brow. Almost detaches his costume’s cloak to offer, but realizes how useless that would be – extra layers only warm if you’re generating heat to trap in them. He steps over, setting a steadying hand on Rorschach’s shoulder, is surprised to be able to feel the skin jumping and trembling through three layers of clothing. Is shocked beyond the capacity for speech when Rorschach leans into it, ducking his head slightly and angling his posture inward towards Dan – like someone huddling towards a fire for warmth. That’s likely exactly what he’s doing. The shaking redoubles in intensity.

“All right, look, I don’t know what’s going on here, seems to have come on with no warning, but we need to get out of here before it gets worse-”

_(“There's never really any warning," he’d said, and had he been laughing then, or had that come later?)_

Rorschach’s practically leaning on him now, hands still stuffed resolutely in his pockets, body language protesting his sudden weakness no matter that he’s starting to sway on his feet. “Can you make it out the way we came, or do you want me to bring Archie up?”

“Nrg. Can’t draw that much attention to ourselves. I’ll manage.”

Dan is doubtful of that, but he doesn’t question.

*

They make it down to the street without serious incident - just a few hairy moments on one ledge or another when Dan is sure that Rorschach is going to buckle and fold and slip right off, which doesn't happen but he can't quite shake the worry or loosen his grip - which he figures is pretty ironic as he brings his fist down again into the mass of dirty hair and skin and teeth currently trying to wrench his arm from its socket. Ironic, because he'd been so relieved when their feet had hit pavement that he'd completely forgotten about the scavengers now scattered from their food source and looking for something to replace it.

And there's only one, and the armor is helping as he had said it would, but the thing detached itself from the shadows with such oily grace and palpable, burning menace and bolted straight at him with such speed - past Rorschach like he didn't exist which is _good_ because it's doubtful he could have fended it off at the moment and god, what if there are more of them lurking around and and _and_ \- that it didn't take long for the panic to set in. When the teeth latched into the armor covering his forearm and he realized that they were sinking straight through it, 'panic' was no longer a strong enough word and he's fallen to beating at its face over and over as if it's shark or a pit bull or some other predatory creature that bites down and _doesn't ever let go._

And all he can think, crazily and with a mental voice rapidly rising in pitch and volume is:

_(Even they prefer a warm meal when they can get it.)  
_  
And he's just about to lose it - completely and totally, because he's starting to actually feel the teeth pressing through, and it's probably only been a second or two but it feels like _hours_, and it's just been that kind of night - when there's a snapping sound, a splintering dry wood sound, and instead of 130 pounds of struggling animal flailing against him, there's suddenly 130 pounds of dead weight dragging down on his arm, falling from unsteady gloved hands hovering just above.

Dan just breathes for a second or two, savoring it for all that it hurts- choking gasps past that horrible blood-in-the-throat feeling of terror dropping off into something more manageable. Then they spend ten agonizingly exposed minutes trying to work the jaw open, pry the teeth out of the dense material they've become embedded in.

Rorschach keeps a hold on his arm after the body finally slips free to pool at their feet; runs shaking fingers over the deep bite impressions in the armored sleeve. "Did it break through?" he asks, voice insistent and demanding and _needing to know_ but wheezy and distant, like someone who's been running for so long they no longer remember where they're going.

Dan just shakes his head, inspecting the damage in what light they have. "I don't think so. Hard to see, though." And he doesn't _feel _anything, any sort of actual injury, but wired as he is, he isn't sure he'd feel a knife between the ribs right now. "Let's just get back, okay?"

It's the only expression Dan can read through the mask - Rorschach narrowing his eyes at him - he can always tell by the way the fabric bunches and shifts over his brow line. But Rorschach continues to shake violently and is unsteady and threatening to pitch into the pavement at any moment, still holding onto Dan's arm as if he's forgotten about it, and they're both still in danger out here. So Dan ignores it, starting out in the direction of the ship with footfalls heavier than they should be, letting his friend take whatever support he needs.

*

When they finally get back to the brownstone- it's a long and tedious trip, Dan trying to navigate while also keeping a constant eye on his partner shivering in the copilot's seat, curled in on himself in an unconscious bid to conserve warmth he's no longer generating - and Dan changes into his street clothes, he picks up the Owlsuit's sleeve and takes a really good look.

There's only the thinnest layer - a fraction of a millimeter or so - still intact under the bite marks. Dan grants himself a moment to tilt his head back and stare at the ceiling and really consciously _feel_ his heart beating for the first time in his life - to feel relieved and grateful for his luck, without guilt over those less fortunate tugging him back down.

Then the moment passes, and he's in his guest room, helping Rorschach struggle his coat off over arms too uncoordinated to accomplish the task on their own. He's barely aware of his surroundings at this point, beyond fighting the assistance, beyond any sense of pride or vulnerability or what the words even mean. Dan wants badly to ask what's going on, to grab his friend by the shoulders and shake the information out of him, but that's not a wise move on a good day and this is anything but.

_(And he probably doesn't know any more than you do.)_

Which, well... that's frightening in its own special way.

So they peel off the coat and the jacket, and Dan sets the hat aside and Rorschach manages to toe off the shoes himself before reaching up to pull away the mask, retreating into the blankets in blind and bleary obedience of some ancient burrowing instinct, buried in the back of the brain- the part that remembers being tiny and scrabbling and alone in a terrifyingly hostile world.

Dan stands for an indeterminate length of time at the foot of the bed, watching and thinking - mostly about the tight question mark his friend is making under the blankets, and about the bodies they've been finding out on patrol, huddled into themselves, faces frozen in something like desperation all mixed up with surprise. And about how useless those blankets are, as useless as his cape would have been in that drafty office twelve stories up, doing nothing more than capturing and holding in the cold.

He's not really thinking anything at all when he nudges his own shoes off, mind a carefully arranged blank as he drops his glasses to the nightstand and sits on the edge of the bed.

Pulling back the corner of the blanket, he's thinking

_(it's fine, he's completely out of it, he won't even notice, and it's for his own good)_

and he's thinking

_(you're a complete and utter idiot, and you know it)_

and the two thoughts directly contradict and one of them must be wrong but he can't bring himself to examine it too closely; just awkwardly shifts himself into the cold and cocooned space between the blankets. And he feels stupid and unbearably brave all at once because he can hear Ozymandias's cold accusations and he can hear the hospital director saying that he won't get a warning and his free arm is sore and aching from where the scavenger's bite crushed the armor around it but he still loops it over the shivering body next to him and tucks himself up against it, letting his warmth be leeched clean off through both layers of fabric.

He tells himself that this is practical, that if his heating blanket hadn't blown its element last winter and gone down in a haze of fire extinguisher expellant that this wouldn't be necessary at all.

He tells himself that there's not something inside of him that's being warmed by the chilled form gathered against him, even as his own body heat is diffusing away.

He tells himself that he isn't terrified that either he or Rorschach won't make it through the night, depending on what exactly is going wrong; that it isn't the case that he can't find it in himself to walk away from this right now; that he doesn't feel like his only option is to face it, and hold on for dear life, and hope for the best.

He tells himself a lot of things – then there's a shifting against him, and Dan freezes in place.

"...dangerous, Daniel."

And it sounds like a warning but it's strangely quiet and resigned, as if he knows what Dan is going to say and doesn't harbor any delusions of being able to change his mind. And Dan would be surprised that that's all he's protesting about the situation - Dan's own safety - but he's all out of energy for being shocked tonight, and maybe the fact that the space under the blankets has already warmed considerably has made his motivation obvious –

"I know," Dan replies, quietly, the breath that comes with the words ghosting through the smaller man's hair.

-or maybe after starting to find a place for himself in the grey space between the person he'd been before and the creatures baying and screaming in the street outside, Rorschach's finally finding somewhere within himself an ability to exist in those zones – the space between the clearly defined thoughts and ideas that make up schemas and worldviews and the places we call home-

Dan closes his eyes and tightens his grip fractionally. "I can take my own chances."

-or maybe he's just exhausted beyond thought. There's a small sound, vaguely disapproving, but no further argument. No energy left for it. Within a few minutes, Rorschach's drifted off, though the tremors continue undiminished.

Sleep is longer in coming for Dan, who lies there looking into the cold and empty space inside himself, and considering how he ended up here of all places, and trying not to let the shaking body under his bruised and sore arm find and pluck a resonance in him- and worrying about exactly what reality he'll be opening his eyes on in the morning.

If he opens them at all.

*


	9. Day 14

*

Dan opens his eyes.

He opens his eyes on blue and blue and red-gold and a fierceness that is both familiar and sends a shiver straight to his core, and his first thought is _(oh thank god, he's still alive)_ and his second thought is _(oh thank god, I haven't been eaten)_ and his third thought is _(oh, **shit**)._ Because he's staring across a pillow at Rorschach and he has no idea how to even begin to address this fact verbally, much less how to go about detangling himself from the situation.

"Daniel." There's no audible question mark, but it's still a question.

Dan narrows his eyes through his myopia, trying hard to focus on the face in front of him - realizes that the issue isn't with his vision. The fact that there's a question buried somewhere in Rorschach's expression is apparent enough, but it keeps shifting and changing, like the inkblots on his mask - keeps trying to become something else just before it resolves itself. If it were something simple and obvious like 'what the hell are you doing in my bed', Dan wouldn't be half as hesitant to respond.

...and, for that matter, how did they end up facing each other like this, unless Rorschach woke up, turned over, and... what? Stayed put, watching him sleep? The thought is ludicrous, and it's also a little unnerving and a little confusing and a little honestly terrifying - because it's warming him somewhere inside just as much as the heatsink of Rorschach's back curled against him had the night before and that's so beyond wrong and screwed up and...

_(Get a handle on yourself.)_

"What?" he asks, voice impressively neutral.

Rorschach blinks, and all of the shifting coalesces down to a point. "Move your leg? Trapped at the moment."

Oh. Dan shifts, muttering apologies. "Could have just kicked me awake."

An indistinct noise, then: "Could've," and nothing more. Rorschach slides to the edge of the bed, reaching for his jacket where it hangs over the edge of a chair, pulling it on with a shifting grace that shouldn't be possible this early in the day.

And Dan tries to ignore the way that warm wisp of something is circling around in his gut, looking for a place to settle. He fumbles at the nightstand for his glasses, blinking blearily through the lenses. Gets his own feet on the floor before this gets _really_ awkward. "How are you feeling?"

His partner is shuffling his shoes on, and doesn't look up. "Better," he replies, tone cautious and guarded and giving away nothing. "Warmer. Probably your doing. Certainly not mine."

"No more shakes?" Dan asks, and now that he can see clearly, he's expecting the lie when it comes.

"...no."

A second or two of silence, then Dan pushes himself unsteadily to his feet. "Okay, well..."

"Daniel." He's pulled the mask half on now, fabric bunched over his nose, and there's a significant pause before he continues. "It's... fine."

Head slightly ducked, biting down hard on everything else that wants to be said, Dan glances sideways at his friend. Runs one hand through his hair. Says what actually matters, quietly: "I was really worried."

There's a grunt that Dan's learned to translate roughly to 'yes' or a generalized agreement. "Came to the same conclusion you did, once I was warm enough to think again. To see the similarities. Was not a... comforting thought." Another pause, and he reaches up sharply to wrench the mask down all the way, protectively, edges rolling in his fingers. "Would have done the same."

And Dan doesn't need to express his incredulity- it's clear on his face, in the set of furrowed brows.

Rorschach just picks up his hat, retrieving his scarf from where it's coiled inside. "Priorities, Daniel."

Dan swallows, and looks at the door.

_-My life matters more to you than pride or propriety or squeamishness-_ is what's hanging in the air, unsaid, _-and so does yours to me-_, and it's almost a thank you, almost an acknowledgment of how much he'd been needed but it will never quite be that, ever, and...

... and it's almost too much, and Dan picks up his shoes and excuses himself and heads upstairs.

*

It's only when he's gotten his shower running good and hot and he finds himself distinctly missing the cold that Dan allows himself to admit that they may have a problem - or rather,_ another_ problem, on top of an already impressive pile.

"Damn it all," he growls, sounding like something other than himself, and reaches to turn off the water with more force than necessary.

*

Once he's changed and shaved and combed out his hair and all the other things sane people do to take care of themselves in the morning, and a few things that sane people do when they're trying to stall for time, Dan wanders down into the kitchen. Picks up the open box of cereal, is about to seal it up and put it away when he thinks better of it, reaching for a bowl for himself.

It plunks down onto the table with a little too much finality, and Dan follows into the chair in front of it.

The Owlsuit is still half-draped across one corner of the table - the light in here had been better last night - and Rorschach's got its sleeve between searching fingers, cereal forgotten off to the side. Bending the armor along the bite marks, checking for the slightest breach. Absorbed. His mask is half up and his spoon's still stuck in his mouth, as if he'd forgotten about it completely in his investigations.

"Already checked it over last night, it's fine." It's actually not that early, and the sun coming in the window is bright and uncompromising; Dan squints behind his glasses, reaches one hand out to press into an indentation. "Shouldn't take too much to fix it either, though I'll probably want to redo the top layer entirely in something more durable."

Rorschach just makes a hrming noise, shifts the spoon to the other side of his mouth. Inspects the place where the teeth had gone deepest, and it really was just a razor-thin layer of polymer between Dan and... who knows what, exactly. Rorschach's situation, at very best; losing an arm on top of it at worst. Or possibly his mind. "This was really close," Rorschach mutters, more to himself than to Dan.

Dan nods, stirring the cereal absently. Raisin Bran has never been his favorite; god knows why he buys it all the time.

"It made you braver."

Dan runs a finger over the marks again, digging a fingernail into the split. The last layer finally does fissure under the pressure; it doesn't take much. He shivers slightly, and his arm still aches, and he thinks about slipping it between blanket and shirtcloth and not really knowing if he'd still have it in the morning. "I guess so. Shouldn't have. Should've made me run for the hills."

"But you didn't," and it's half a question, half a challenge. Rorschach takes the spoon out and goes back to his cereal, and there's still a slight shiver in his fine motor control, scattering tiny droplets of milk back into the bowl - but it's nothing like last night, not acute, not telling of an imminent breakdown. But there, and still indicative of _something_.

Headshake, then quietly: "No." And he doesn't _explain_, but all of a sudden he finally knows, himself, why - it's written there in the pattern of white droplets on the tabletop, woven into the frequency of unease and fear and the resonance of shaking hands clasped together under the darkness: the unbearable noise that fills every silence between them.

Something about heat and cold and how they both can burn just as fiercely. Something about screams layered into the night.

Something...

A moment passes, and the feeling of epiphany fades as it always does, and Dan gets up to dump his cereal - it's worse soggy, and he's let it get to that point - and Rorschach cuffs the owlsuit up in one hand and holds it out pointedly.

Dan just eyes him from the sink, one eyebrow raised.

"We need newspapers," comes the eventual reply, straightforward, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Need to follow up on last night, make sure the right lesson was taken."

The bowl settles into the sink with a subdued clatter. "And I have to put on my costume for the amazingly secret and sensitive activity of walking to the newsstand?"

It doesn't even raise half a smile in response, but Dan didn't really expect it to. "It's too dangerous on the street alone," Rorschach says plainly and factually, and he's not looking at the damaged sleeve of the suit- focusing on his breakfast- but he may as well be.

And he doesn't have to explain the rest of his logic, the statements that logically follow. Not when the last fight they'd gotten into on regular patrol had been with a gang of fifteen or so normally law-abiding citizens, only missing the torches and pitchforks, beating a perfectly stable carrier into a bruised and huddled heap in the corner of a desolate alley.

_(There was a lot of blood, that night.)_

It's becoming a schismed world very quickly, and if Rorschach can't go out in his street face and Dan wants his company, full costume is really the only choice. It's also a patently ludicrous mental image.

"...I think I'll be all right by myself," and he's smiling and pushing the suit back to the table and not saying that he's thinking about how few of the caught-between he's actually seen out there, between the hospital killing them and their neighbors killing them and probably a lot of them killing themselves - and the ones hauled off in restraints to be put down like rabid dogs. "Need some time to think about... need time to think, anyway. And it's almost noon-"

"They're not nocturnal."

"-but they're scarcer and don't pack up in the daytime as much, and I can handle one by itself."

Rorschach's still not pointedly looking at the mangled suit, but it sits between them, offering silent and unpleasant testimony to the falseness of that statement.

There's no response for a while; the spoon hits the bowl, and Rorschach gives him a list, and there's some sort of expression trying to form on the unmasked lower half of his face but Dan is out the door before he's forced to see whatever it turns out to be.

*

It's a strange world he's stepped out into, and it's the first time since this began that Dan really feels like an apocalypse of some sort has been and gone. They've been locked up in his brownstone for so long now, sleeping away the daylight, only coming out into the shadowy playground of New York twilight filled with the usual sirens and strobing lights and people screaming for their help, for anyone's help - and it's felt almost normal.

This, though - this silence, almost complete, stifling in the spaces between boarded up buildings, haphazard barricades, piles of trash no longer being collected -

There's no one else out.

_(Maybe this was a stupider idea than you thought.)_

There's no one else out, and maybe they all know something he doesn't or maybe they're more easily scared or maybe he has a goddamned brain tumor, the things he's been doing lately, but the newsstand is only a block away and he gets there without incident. Tucking some folded bills into the self-pay jar on the vacant counter, impressed by both the apparent trust of the vendor and by their dedication to keep the news coming in the face of everything else falling to pieces, Dan peels the morning edition of each requested publication from its stack, and heads home, and pretends not to notice when he gets there that Rorschach is perched on the arm of the chair nearest the entryway, tripwire tense and one ear trained on the door.

*

The news is acceptable. The people responsible are being punished. The mayor's already announced his resignation and the news has only been out for a few hours. Rorschach sits at the table with the papers spread around himself, pages from different sources interleaved and overlapping and organized in haphazard ways that make sense only to him. A red pen moves over them, hovers here, hesitates there, circles a passage or moves on. Notes are scribbled in margins. "Have any trouble?" he asks, muffled now through the mask.

Daniel shakes his head, a motion Rorschach just barely catches on the periphery of vision. "Street was empty. I could have walked to the newsstand naked and no one would have noticed or cared."

Hmm. A link between the mayor and the CDC? That gets double-underlined. There's an awkward pause settling into the room, as if Daniel has just embarrassed himself in some way, but Rorschach doesn't pay it any heed, digging through the pages for something to cross-reference the CDC connection. Idle, and somewhat gruff: "Get the thinking done?"

No response at first, as if Daniel's trying to remember what exactly the question refers to - then he's walking across the room, to do something noisy at the sink directly behind him. "Ah, well, you know. As soon as I realized I was the only one stupid enough to be out there, that sort of got preempted."

A noise of approval. Rorschach had not been thrilled with the idea of Daniel wandering around out there with his head in the clouds. Good that survival instincts had kicked in. And there's nothing else in any of the pages to corroborate his favorite paper's claim, but he trusts their standards of truth and disclosure further than he does the Gazette or the Times by a long shot, so it gets a star next to it to indicate personal investigation further down the line.

He senses Daniel hovering over his shoulder, eyes roving over the scattered pages, and for a moment it almost feels like things are the way they've always been - the puzzle-piecing and the connections and later they would go out and take down their prize and it would make him actually feel good for a short span of time - but the penlines are more wavering than they should be and the eerie silence from outside has followed Daniel in and the noon light filtering in from outside feels like December sun, all show and no results, cold like fluorescent tubing.

"Huh," Daniel says, reaching down to shift a page off of another, to read what's underneath, throwing off the entire layering and the network of crosslinking lines and...

A gloved hand comes down on the papers to still them from being moved any further, and it used to be that Daniel was scared of his own shadow when it came to Rorschach and his quirks - and this process here potentially could be called 'quirky', he supposed, though not generally to his face - but the other man's taken more liberties than this in the last two weeks and he's not missing any fingers for it, and Rorschach's already moving to tamp down on the anger before he realizes there's no actual anger to tamp down on.

Instead, he glances briefly at the article Daniel had pointed to - a small one, buried in the back pages, a scientific piece on the infection, claiming that the insanity-driving mutation had happened out in the wild, and only in the original vectors, and had happened about two days after the original incident. The implication is that anyone infected before that time is not at risk for the degeneration. Daniel seems enthused, looking at him expectantly, a smile tugging the corner of his face.

Rorschach just hrms deep in his throat, and scribbles a shaky note in the margins. Something about Jackson and his uncertainty regarding the nature or cause of the mutation, despite being in the best position to understand it. Something about Ozymandias's secretary, who was back at work and already going mad two days after the breach. Whose medical records, liberated the night before, showed her original admission as 6:17 AM the morning after the attack.

"Sorry, Daniel," and he really is. "Don't think it's ever that simple."

*

Dan asks, later, if Rorschach wants to go after the person or people who were behind the virus in the first place. He receives only an uncharacteristic shrug in response, and knows in that instant that he's being protected. He's watched Rorschach work on newspapers this way before, has learned to identify themes and purposes, and he knows exactly what sort of hunt he's on.

He's going to kill them. And he doesn't want Dan to have to deal with it.

And after two hours of a careful and hesitant patrol – Rorschach's still not completely up to standards, but they'd both been unwilling to stay in, ear to the walls, listening to their city die by inches – Dan just watches, numb, as Rorschach heads off on his own down an alley, away from the ship.

"Things to take care of. See you in a few hours."

There are bodies around Dan's feet – creatures, and the civilians they'd been too slow in arriving to save, and most of the predators are from that first batch but there's one dressed in the remains of tennis shoes, a jogging suit. That one had been the most vicious of them all - the one who landed the killing strike on the teenage boy that had been running from the haphazard pack, hysterical and crying and feet beating the pavement, when they arrived.

Dan could move to stop him.

He doesn't.

*

Early in the morning, as the first tendrils of sunlight start to snake their way between buildings and through the pre-dawn fog, the head of the research facility – the one who'd been speaking so deferentially on the radio – is found lashed to a flagpole in front of the justice department building, severely beaten, hard copy of all the evidence linking him to the creation of the virus and its deliberate engineering to behave exactly as it does and the safeguards he specifically short-circuited to get the most devastating results and all of the human rights he violated to get there- stapled straight into the side of his head. With multiple staples. The man who finds him says that he'd never before thought that a stapler could be wielded in anger, but there it is.

But he's alive. Broken, humiliated, in a position no jury will ever sympathize with, ever – but alive.

Dan asks him later why he didn't end up killing the man. Rorschach looks straight at him, whatever can he's working his way through forgotten, and deadpans that he has no idea what Dan is talking about, a subtle mockery of his threats to Jackson because Dan is not _him_, Dan does not break fingers or bones or strangle people or drop them out of windows.

There's the slightest trace of a smile on the face under the mask, and Dan decides, uncertain, that this is probably a good sign.

*

There's been a lot of death lately, all around them. Criminals can be tied up and handed over to the police, spitting and screaming insults and threats but manageable. The shadows they're fighting now can't be talked down or reasoned with or handcuffed or knocked unconscious; they have to be put down, immediately, because the first chance to do so – if they get one at all – is the only one they have.

Maybe there's been too much death, and maybe the ability to kill without a second thought is a thread, tightening, between Rorschach and the slavering monsters dying under his hands, in their jeans and T-shirts and business suits and dresses- once rational and thinking beings, gradually displacing the inhuman hordes of the first week or so. Maybe every killing pulls the cord a little tauter, and maybe it's uncomfortable and maybe he's even a little afraid, and maybe 'Doctor Smith' has that to thank for his life, whatever it's to become.

Dan doesn't know, likely won't ever know, because that enigmatic half-smile is all he'll ever have to work with.

*

Things seem to move very quickly after that – to be remembered later as a blur of ideas and fears and not-quites and almosts and studded throughout with the sharp moments that will be burned into memory forever.

*


	10. Later Days

*

The next three patrols are all called off as early nights as well. It never takes much – just a fight that goes on a little too long, or a call that's a little too close, or an opponent who's a little too vicious - and the adrenaline floor drops out from under Rorschach like a cord-cut elevator, leaves him shaking violently in the darkness, an unstable shadow in a city that's already rife with them. Every morning, he's recovered, mostly – but the plateau he manages to clamber back up to gets lower every day, and he's getting worse instead of better. Dan's at a loss; the newspapers and radio news are at a loss.

The third night brings the perfect storm.

They're standing in another nameless alley, and they're the only ones still standing, and Dan is breathing hard and fast, fight leaving him. The bodies on the ground are unconscious, not dead – conventional crime is starting up again, they'd been dismayed to observe earlier that night; preying on the fear and disorganization of society in the wake of near-apocalypse, and in force. Dan is breathing hard and Rorschach is silent, fists clenched, facing away from him, and Dan can see from the side that one of the thugs had gotten a hold of his mask, twisted it up, exposing the lower half of his face.

He hasn't moved to lower it – is just standing, trembling faintly in the outline of a nearby streetlight, spilling its guttering illumination around the corner of the brickwork to diffuse into shadow.

Dan's face is covered in blood. One of the thugs had gotten a grip on him from behind – stupid, _stupid_ – and he'd been forced to headbutt the one coming up in front of him square in the nose to buy enough time to break free. The spray had been impressive. The smell is overpowering. His cowl had popped open and loose at the impact, but he's not thinking about any of it when he reaches to put one hand on Rorschach's shoulder, to ask if he's all right, if they'd gotten him anywh-

He should have been thinking about it.

He's suddenly spun and slammed into the brick wall, spine protesting at the impact that shudders straight through the armor. He could probably break free, he could, but he's hesitant to strike out at his friend even as he hears that low noise start to build, and he thinks it's something to do with exacting control or_ losing_ control and either way, exacting or losing control over _what__?_

Rorschach is grating rough and forced breaths through his teeth, every sound a guttural declaration of hunger. His hands are solid on Dan's shoulders, gloves digging in against the armor, and his face is right next to Dan's, lower, frighteningly close to the pulse point, and Dan has time to think

_(god he's gotten fast_)

and

_(they're calling them carriers because they **carry** it, you idiot)_

and

_(is that teeth oh god oh fuck)_

...and...

_(...)_

_(...you sick bastard, you're actually **enjoying **this, aren't y-)_

  
art by [Liodain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain)

  
And his brain, overloaded, is just about to go into protective shutdown and allow him to pass out when the pressure holding him to the wall is suddenly gone, and Rorschach is two feet back from him, shuffling even further on unsteady feet, hands held in the air in front of him as if they don't belong to him- alien appendages incapable of following his brain's instructions. Betrayers. Dan slumps against the wall, bones going to jelly, and refocuses his eyes; Rorschach pulls his mask down and the blots are moving slowly but they resolve themselves into something even Dan can read as horror.

There's not even a mumbled apology – the inadequateness of which would have been awkward enough and almost humorous enough to give Dan a foothold into the situation – just a small, strangled sound of raw misery, and Rorschach's moving, down the alley, in a direction away from the ship. Not walking, not storming. Running without running. Fleeing.

Dan could let him go. It would be smartest, in the best interests of immediate survival, to let him go.

He won't be back in the morning, spreading newspapers and scavenging food without asking. Might not be back ever.

Dan doesn't even think – and hasn't that been his biggest problem lately, not thinking – just tears off after Rorschach, and grabs him by the arm, and uses his superior size and weight to do what he'd never have considered before, never in a million years. He physically drags his partner, halfheartedly struggling the entire way, back to the ship.

Because in that moment of terror and vulnerability, reading the hunger coming off of the smaller man in waves, consciousness had narrowed to a point, a brilliant pinprick moment of understanding- and Dan finally knows what's going on.

*

The ride home is awkward and silent – worse than awkward, and worse than silent, Rorschach's presence where he stands facing the far rear wall of the compartment a sucking void that undermines even those baselines. Dan just flies the ship, and does his best to ignore it.

*

A plate thuds heavily to the table in front of him.

Rorschach is only here because guilt – an emotion he'd long thought himself separated from – has him rooted to the spot, hands tightly clenched at his sides, curled around the seat of the chair.

He'd almost killed Daniel. He'd almost _killed Daniel._ He'd slammed him against a wall, and threatened him, and gotten so close he could just about taste the sweat and the fear, and almost _hurt_ him. Almost killed him.

And Daniel has just dropped a plate of steak and eggs in front of him.

He doesn't understand. Doesn't know if he wants to. Certainly doesn't want to be here – doesn't want to be anywhere but somewhere high up or, possibly, on the fastest way back down.

_(You tried to kill him._)

Daniel tells him to eat, pointing at the plate. Is taking the pan off of the stove, running it under water so cold that steam hisses and rises from the metal. It's so normal. Domestic. Exactly how Daniel has always lived his uncostumed life, and it's like nothing's changed.

_(Everything's changed._)

Daniel says something about physiology, about an indiscriminate carnivore trying to live off of beans and corn flakes and sugar cubes. About how it was right in front of their faces. About how he had better start eating, right now, and Daniel has never been so aggressive or authoritative.

And because he has no place to protest or argue, not after what he'd done/almost done/tried to do, Rorschach ducks his head and complies.

*

Dan tells him to stay and he can tell that every fiber of Rorschach's being is vibrating in protest, screaming at him to leave, now, before he does more damage. Dan doesn't care, and says so. Rorschach stays.

Two days later and Dan's about run out of meat and eggs and the foil-wrapped frozen chicken he's been keeping in the freezer for late nights when he doesn't feel like cooking, but the shaking has all but stopped, and there have been no further incidents. Not many opportunities for them, to be fair, but still- in the little scorebook in his mind, Dan checks it off as a success, all the while making complicated plans for a grocery run through the infested streets.

*

They sit, night after night, and they go back out into the streets and cover each other's backs, and trust returns, bit by hesitant bit.

*

The streets start to become, if not habitable, then at least not as gruesomely hostile. Human crime begins to supplant nightmare violence at night; by day, the average person stands a decent chance of getting from point A to point B without being savaged. Precautions are still recommended, though, where ‘precautions’ equals ‘carry a shotgun’. Only the most basic of services – food stores, distributors of gasoline and kerosene, general supply retailers, gun shops – have staggered back to life. Utilities do their best to keep up with the downed lines and damaged equipment; the police and the medical community had never shut down. Trash pickup begins to resume, cautiously and only in the highest light of day, but they refuse to touch the bodies that are starting to stack up in the gutters where the police haven’t been able to get to them. The street smells like something unimaginable.

There are statements issued that the viral mutation has burned itself out; that anyone who is infected and has not yet gone feral is in no danger of doing so. Rorschach grumbles and disbelieves and keeps right on with his circles and crosslinks and conspiracies but his hand is sure now, the lines solid and strong, and Daniel watches from across the room as the urgency of a man on borrowed time fades into the determination of a man simply searching for the truth, on no specific timeframe; watches Rorschach become himself.

A message comes on Archie's radio one night; a tentative apology from Ozymandias, and that right there is a bit like being handed a planet as a birthday gift. Apologies from Ozymandias don't _happen_. He was understandably nervous, he explains, but they're more than welcome to return whenever they like; it was never his intention to drive either of them away from the organization. Rorschach stands up silently and walks off halfway through the obviously prepared speech; Dan suspects that they're just feeling shorthanded in the face of the ongoing unrest and Ozymandias is attempting some sort of damage control. He says that they'll think about it, and dials the radio down.

Eventually the day comes when all they find on patrol are thugs and drug dealers and a few scattered gone-mad carriers, the trailing ends of a disaster winding down. The report in the papers – all the papers, even the horrible fascist rag that Rorschach pays such special attention to – claims that the original test subjects' tendency to fall over dead in the night was due to a fault in the genetic alteration that'd been performed on them; these are early days in this sort of research, of course, and without a map of the genomes they're manipulating, mistakes are bound to be made. They are frustratingly unapologetic, but the assertion is broad and absolute: The defect is not carried by the virus.

It's a weight off.

*

As soon as the streets are safe for him to walk without his mask – there's legislation starting to flow already, thought it shouldn't really be needed – Rorschach returns to his old apartment building to see what the state of things are. Things have no state, as it turns out; his unit is locked up for nonpayment of rent, and as soon as the landlady catches a glimpse of him, he's retroactively evicted on top of it. He's to get his things and clear out, she says, to make room for 'tenants who have goddamn pulses.' Her ignorant and indignant behavior is so incongruously everyday and typical and _normal_ that he could honestly almost, _almost _laugh.

It’s irrelevant anyway. He doesn't really want to stay here; the electricity is gone about sixteen hours out of every twenty-four, a surprisingly helpful neighbor informs him, and there've been break-ins. Murders, even. He'd leave, the neighbor says, but he's on a fixed income and his lawyer son wants nothing to do with him, so he stays here where he can afford it.

"Good luck, Walter," the man offers as Rorschach heads off with his single box of what he'd bothered to pack – books mostly, newspapers, spare clothes – and he pauses, because he has no idea how the man could possibly have known his name. Rorschach certainly doesn't know_ his_. Some tiny, buried part of him is ashamed at that fact, but he just nods, and walks on.

*

He makes some noises about getting a hotel now that the situation is starting to stabilize, and he's sure, yes Daniel, very sure that that's what he wants to do. There's one right down the r- yes, that one. No, he's never heard it called that. The Stab Me Special? No, he can handle- No, it isn't ridiculous, it's perfectly sound, and safer for everyon-

Daniel just takes the box right out of his hands, and drops it onto the floor of the guest room with a thump of finality, then wanders back into the living room to catch what's left of the evening news – broadcasts just recently started up again – before it's time for patrol.

*

They've just stopped one of a dozen petty crimes that night – a straightforward mugging, though implications had been dripping from the assailant's body language like syrup, clinging to his every move. He's bound, and Rorschach is straightening back up, and something falls from his pocket. Daniel picks it up before he can register the voice telling him not to, goes to hand it back – recognizes it.

It's folded up, the front page from last week's Times, and the photograph – blown up to fill half the page – is the only existing snapshot of the original test subjects mid-attack. It'd been developed from the cheap camera of an unknown victim, found weeks ago in the park, and it's unclear from the crooked and unfocused composition whether it'd been taken deliberately or if the victim had simply bumped the shutter button while trying to escape.

And it's honestly horrifying, all teeth and madness and burning eyes, and Dan doesn't know why Rorschach would be carrying it in his pocket. He glances at his friend, and he doesn't ask, but the question's there on his face.

A long silence, then Rorschach reaches up to push his hat further down over where his eyes would be. Hands go into pockets. "...reminds me of what I'm not," he finally volunteers, then holds one hand out for the page's return.

He glances at the sheet. Rorschach isn't just talking about the literality of the monsters in the photograph, Dan realizes brokenly. He's talking about Jackson and about the research director and he's talking about the piece of human filth lying at their feet, unconscious and tied but alive to face trial no matter it may not be what he deserves.

Dan refolds the page and hands it back in silence.

*

Somewhere along the line, the criminal underworld gets wind of the fact that the vigilante who has always been their most ghoulish and nightmarish figure of fear is now however much more terrifying, depending on who's telling the story - and worse than that, the shifting and furtive rumors say, they can use knives and guns and clubs but they can't seem to slow him down or stop him or do any real damage.

It still feels like damage to Dan, sitting in the close warmth of his guest room, carefully putting a row of stitches into Rorschach's back. "You're starting to look like a quilt," he says, and it's a joke but there's a grimness behind it. He's had to find and buy special non-dissolving sutures after having to completely redo several of the earliest wounds. He's already running low again.

Rorschach makes a noise, the verbal equivalent of a shrug, then lifts one arm up in front of him, looking at the deep slice he'd gotten in the bar that night – the thug with the hidden gun. "These should be able to come out soon."

"Yeah, months later," Dan says, tying the last stitch off carefully, hand lingering for a moment over the deep and neatly closed line of the injury, fingers pressing lightly in opposite directions to test its ability to hold – palm flattening over it, taking in the feel of warm against cold. At least it'd only been a knife – nice clean edges to work with. At least it's curved low under the shoulder blade, and not close to the spine. At least...

"You need to be more careful."

A nod, and Rorschach's reaching for his discarded shirt, heedless of the jagged tear dancing across the back of it.

*

Life goes on, and the city limps back into something approaching normalcy. There's always crime, always screams in the night, but the background noise is picking up in intensity and pitch and the tapestry of sensation, standing on a rooftop over the city and scanning its skyline, is becoming familiar again- a rising and falling and repetitive pulse of life that feels almost like a heartbeat.

Then, one day in late September, a bus driver's young daughter goes missing.

*


	11. One Day

*

"Deserves it," Rorschach mutters in the dark, voice monotonic and frightening, tone indecipherable. His hand is twisting the cap from the kerosene bottle, and he hasn't even looked up at the figure that has suddenly appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the faint city-glow from outside like a ghost of other lives, other pasts.

The figure nods, and it's trembling slightly, one hand held out as if to placate. "Yeah, you know, I think he does. But you don't deserve to be the one who has to do it."

The kerosene is splashed around the room haphazardly, over and around the unconscious body cuffed to the wall, Rorschach's every move that of a caged animal, battering at its bars – possessed by some higher need than rational thought. "Someone has to," he growls, and he steps momentarily through a sliver of light and is bloody and fierce and broken and unrecognizable, but there's emotion creeping into his tone now, faint and familiar and it's something, it's somewhere to start.

Start somewhere...

The shadow in the doorway takes a step into the room and, as Rorschach passes close to the door, does an extremely dangerous thing – reaches out and grabs hold of the arm bearing the kerosene can, holds it solidly. Rorschach's entire frame starts to shake, instantly, but it isn't a tremble of weakness or a shiver of cold – it's rage, bubbling to the surface, vibrating itself free in a new direction now that his motion has been stilled. "Someone will," and his voice is steady despite the precarious situation he knows himself to be in; there's no wall, but he can just about feel the brickwork digging into his spine. The alternative is horrifyingly worse. "What do you think will happen to him, in prison? They don't like child-killers in there, Rorschach. They _really_ don't," and he's talking fast, with the flushed desperation of a man waiting for the blade to drop, and maybe he is. "You kill him now, his suffering ends. We turn him in, it goes on and on."

Rorschach – who really isn't Rorschach, not right now, not with the girl's blood still drying on the scarred countertop across the room; just a quaking caricature of the persona he's spent ten years teaching the streets to fear, that's all he can handle being – drops the kerosene can without bothering to free his arm, and digs in his pocket for a book of matches. "_Justice,_" he grinds out, and it sounds like even he isn't sure whether it's a statement or a question.

He comes out with the matches – and with a folded sheet of paper, dark and rough-edged from riding around in his pocket for a month – and freezes. He can't see it, in the darkness, can't see the faces staring out of it, bloody and fierce and broken and unrecognizable. Doesn't have to.

A horrible, shattered noise weaves through the space between them, and the clipping drops to the floor, released as if it had burned.

There's a moment of utter stillness in the darker than dark, a stretch of time twisting and writhing in the space between them. Then Dan puts his other hand over the fumbled matchbook, curls over it, takes it away.

*

Maybe six months ago, Dan wouldn't have had the nerve to take Rorschach by the shoulders, shove him into a chair – start stripping off the bloody and sweat-stinking trenchcoat, and demand that he start talking, _right now._ Maybe he wouldn't have had the courage to listen, and keep listening, even when it gets scary and all he wants to do is believe this is a nightmare and wake the hell up.

Maybe six months ago, the human being inside of the caricature would have been too hung up on vulnerability, too lacking in trust, too detached from its status _as_ a human being to be able to batter against the caricature's grip, fight its way to the surface, and do as Daniel is demanding.

Maybe a person's entire future can pivot on one night, one hour, one _moment_ – on a rapidly closing window to strike at the right demons, to make the right choices.

For a while, Dan just listens. Then he starts responding, when it gets to be too much and he can't handle just listening. They talk and shout and argue, violently raised voices and things that can never be taken back, but anger is at least an emotion, is _something_, something other than a horrifying monotonic blankness.

There are quiet moments, awkward silences where more is said by the angle of a face or the shifting of a shaking hand than in a thousand shouted arguments or invectives.

There's a lot of Jungian bullshit, about the collective racial memory of fear and the unconscious discovering its true face. The mask hasn't come up once the entire night, and if he's honest with himself, that has Dan more worried than anything else.

There are odd moments where Dan finds Rorschach suddenly collapsing into him, clinging for a handhold, all the while growling like a thing rabid and ready to snap out at any hand that comes near. Dan threads his arm around anyway; he's very familiar at this point with taking stupid risks. He's not going to stop now, not when it matters.

And it goes round and round. They argue about the girl, and about Grice, and about Jackson and about the city and about the killing they've both had to do and about sickness and filth and metaphor and poetry, and about the way a fire can feel under hands and against a face and rising, vengeful, into the night, and about the parents and about the way the dogs had cried out and about the stars shimmering down, tacit approval, on everything they've ever had to do, everything the darkness has ever hidden from the world, from the city, from themselves.

There are shaking admissions in there, somewhere, and Dan just holds onto them and accepts them and he might make a few of his own, but things get a little disconnected after a while.

*

By the time the first light of dawn is starting to shift in through the window, Dan has gotten the mask off and is holding Rorschach steady by the back of his neck as he dry-heaves over the kitchen sink. Nothing seems willing to come up despite the fact that plenty had gone down, but his brain is still blissfully unaware of the rest of him and when it's decided that that's it, it's had enough, time to purge- the muscles obey. The quasi-fugue state has passed, finally, and what's left is a hollow and shaking shell, but it's a shell Dan knows and recognizes and that's all that matters – the only thing in the world that matters.

*

_("At the second turning of the second stair-")_

It's a disconnected thought but it's a thought, and a thought that belongs to him, and Rorschach can't go any deeper than that, not right now, not with Daniel guiding him carefully past the closed guest room door and up the stairs – just grab onto the thought and hold it close and try to keep his legs moving and get to the top before everything tumbles down.

*

Dan jerks the shower's handle with force just shy of breaking it clean off, and the pipes rattle to life. There's nothing but practicality in his movements as he strips off the bloodstained and filthy layers of his friend's symbolic armor, laying pale skin bare in the harsh white lights – crisscrossed in old and new scars, in lines of stitches, pigment standing out sharply in the swaths of freckles; Grimy with sweat and blood and something like fear. He offers no resistance, but the luminous eyes carry a familiar light now, and the shaking is no longer from fury. There's someone in there.

He's pushed into the stall, and there's a hand on his shoulder from outside, holding him steady. Neither says a word, and Rorschach just stands, disoriented and white and drenched and running with rivulets of dirt and blood, black-red water swirling towards the drain, looking more lost and hollow and frightened and _frightening_ than Dan has ever seen him.

*

The water turns off, and there is a towel, and then there are blankets and sheets and something warm at his back, and all Rorschach can see behind his eyes are the stove and the countertop and the dogs and the indifferent stars, watching over all of it.

*

The room is silent and still, and there is an honesty running through it, tingling like electricity on the surface of the skin.

Rorschach wants someone to take him apart and put him back together again, and maybe he says that out loud and maybe he doesn't.

Dan wants to never have to feel this close to losing his friend again, this close to such unshakable grief, and maybe he says that out loud and maybe he doesn't.

When Dan presses an open mouth to the back of Rorschach's neck, he tastes something like rotting leaves and old copper pennies, and the small and broken sound shivering out from under the heaped blankets is the only thing in the world right now that makes any sense at all. It's a promise and a warning and an apology all at once, and somehow, all Dan can do is slip both arms around and hold on tighter than he ever has and tell himself, really tell himself, that he'll be able to let go in the morning.

*


	12. Loose Ends

  
*

It takes... a while. It's not like flipping a switch. There are shaky late nights and there are fits of anger and there are mornings when it all comes crashing back in. Gradually, though, Dan's able to pull Rorschach back onto stable footing- all the building blocks are still there, and if he's a little quieter in the aftermath, a little more cynical, it's the least damage anyone could expect to take after seeing what he'd seen.

Dan volunteers, the day after, to talk to the parents for him. It isn't _right,_ it isn't his responsibility, but Rorschach's eyes are hollow in the fading afternoon light – he's over the sink, scrubbing the blood splatter from his mask – and he doesn't seem to have it in him to argue.

It's a week before Dan can get him to put the mask back on and go out on an abbreviated patrol, just to regain a feel for the streets. The moment he slips it on it's as if time stops, for only a second, echoing around in its hollow spaces with a sharp and uncompromising awareness of just how close he'd come to losing himself to it.

Then time resumes and it's just a piece of latex and trapped liquid, and they head out, a little uncertain, into the night.

*

Dan works with the others sometimes, when it's necessary. He drops in on the occasional meeting to keep up to date on the latest criminal goings-on. But he doesn't feel like he belongs to this brotherhood, not anymore – not since the day they forced him to choose between loyalties, and he had. Rorschach had been his partner - his brother - long before the Crimebusters existed, after all.

*

They keep one eye on the news and the papers for progress that may or may not be made in finding a cure for the virus, but since the fiasco with City General – and the CDC link had been reported to be fraudulent, an 'unsubstantiated conspiracy theory', which was enough to make Rorschach throw a can at the screen and storm out for an early start to the night's head-breaking – they're being _careful_. Conservative. Making no great leaps forward. There are also very few available participants for drug trials even if they were making progress, which they aren't, so it's something of a moot appeal.

More and more, Dan's finding it's not a critical concern. He says to Rorschach one night, repairing some minor damage his partner had done to his grappling gun, "You know, pulling that stunt with Jackson – we may have blown your chances of ever shaking this thing."

Rorschach just shrugs, and tucks the returned grappling gun into his coat, and climbs into Archie's hatch.

*

Dan comes in with a load of groceries one day – and they still look at him funny at the meat counter, but he's not about to make an issue of it – to find Rorschach sitting on the living room floor in a spare set of clothes, mask half pushed up, a broad wooden sign being painted in front of him. The whitewash is old but the lettering is fresh, and he watches for a moment, letting the message take shape- until he can't help but laugh. "Perfect disguise," he says, and Rorschach looks up at him sharply, but there's something like laughter tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  
art by [Liodain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain)

  
"No one will take it seriously, will they?" he asks, tone all severity but there's something in there that lets Dan know that that is, in fact, the entire point.

Dan just grins, and continues on to the kitchen to put his things away.

And when Rorschach takes to the street the next day, there's not a single person who actually believes that the end is nigh – not when the end has already been and gone, as far as they're concerned. And there he is, living, visual proof: hands gripped around the wooden handle even whiter than the chipping and dirtied paint on the sign's face.

*

So Walter by day, hiding in plain sight behind the guise of the simple eccentricity and destitution of a disenfranchised carrier, buying newspapers with far too much small change, keeping an eye on the ebb and flow and lifeblood of the city from within its own body. He palms notes to Daniel as he passes by at all the predetermined times, a one-man surveillance operation that goes predictably unnoticed in a place too loud and busy and caught up in its own problems to pick up on the obvious.

At night, they are Rorschach and Nite Owl, and all the intelligence he's collected and the questions and answers and the newspapers scarred and scabbed over in red ink reap their rewards. They repair the city, one loose nut or bolt or screw at a time, helping where they can, protecting who they can, _doing_ what they can, covering each other in the violent darkness of brick and dumpsters and empty cavernous warehouses and damp creaking docks and the moment of life suspended out there in the nothing, only a thin grappling line arresting freefall – now, as before. As always.

*

Winter settles in around them with whispers of cleansing and rebirth amidst the snow and sleet and grey-black slush, the twisted leafless trees, the dying grass and starving park life. The promises seem hollow, but there is a thrum that resonates at the wooden core of every tree and the itchy center of every animal and human brain, an ancient wisdom lodged in deep that says that anything – _anything_ – can be reborn.

Promises aside, it still brings with it cold days and colder nights and bitter winds that bite to the bone. Rorschach is still sleeping mostly in Daniel's guest room, though it's barely a guest room at this point, his books and newspapers stacked on the shelves, his worn street clothes piled against the wall of the closet – but there are the odd nights that he patrols alone for one reason or another, and he comes in late, frost clinging to the brim of his hat and riming all along the outside of his mask and gloves. And he always pauses in the entryway, like it's breaking through a new wall every time, before climbing the stairs and silently slipping open the door to Daniel's room.

It's something to do with the cold, its invisible claws sunk deep into him, too deep to shake free on his own. It's something about the hollow space next to him that he turns to after a fight, to make sure Daniel's still standing, and only then remembers that Daniel's covering the uptown area right now, that there'd been too much going on below them tonight not to split up their resources. It's something to do with how long he wanders, well after patrol is over, and the kinds of thoughts that ambush the alone and cold and aimless in the dying ends of winter nights.

He stands in the doorway, silent. Sometimes Daniel just sleeps on, oblivious, and he turns and goes back downstairs. Sometimes, though – more often than not – his friend's instincts are working like they should be and he wakes up, senses he's being watched. His eyes are dark and bleary in the half-light, and he lifts the blanket with one arm; an invitation as wordless as the question. And Rorschach shucks off the hat and a few layers of jacket and coat and sets aside the mask and shoes, and that copper-and-leaf-rot smell clings no matter how often he washes, but Daniel's long since stopped noticing or caring. The blankets are heavy; the heat gathered in the grey space under them heavier.

It's 1975, a new year quickly approaching, and maybe there's only two years before their whole world is turned on its ear and maybe there's only ten years before everything goes to hell and uncertainty in the coldest place of all, all of today's choices echoing dully into the future, changing who they are and who they will be and what decisions they'll be capable of. But for now, in this time and place, Rorschach can lie quiet and still next to someone he trusts, held in arms that've covered his back and stitched his wounds and pulled him kicking and screaming out of the darkest of places, and for just a little while, he is warm.

*

END

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus completes the second longest thing I have ever written. Thanks to all of the lovely readers over on the kinkmeme who kept my fragile self-esteem propped up through the process. The summary quote is from the missing verse of 'The Boxer' by Simon and Garfunkle; the quote in part 11 is from 'Ash-Wednesday' by T.S. Elliot, 1930 - which seeing as the GN noted a specific affinity for literature in Rory's background, seemed like something he'd know. The full quote is: "At the second turning of the second stair | I left them twisting, turning below; | There were no more faces and the stair was dark."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Getting Warmer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/53173) by [Steals_Thyme (Liodain)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/pseuds/Steals_Thyme)
  * [Equalizer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/619621) by [meganphntmgrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meganphntmgrl/pseuds/meganphntmgrl)




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